I pulled my journal from the drawer. After Charlie died, writing in a journal was my only way to let my thoughts out. I couldn’t speak to my parents; they were in their own cloud of grief. This time I started jotting down notes while they were fresh in my head. For what? I didn’t know. For Mr. Rosen, for a story, for my dreams, for my imagination, for company? I wrote about the lighthouse, standing 111 feet tall, the red daymark around its middle, the widow’s walk barely visible at the top and the ragged cliffs below. The specks of white paint in the keeper’s hair and on his forearms. The way he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The strange detail he’d known about me, where I’d grown up. His mysterious, inquisitive nature. My impulse to walk up to the house with him when he went to get the laundry, to peek into the windows of the grey house at the base of the light tower.
I laid my head on the desk and closed my eyes for a second. How did he know anything about me? I imagined a return visit to the lighthouse, a reason to speak to him once more. I could set up a tour for the women perhaps—maybe I could suggest that at the planning meeting for a July activity. No, I changed my mind; I wanted to pretend the lighthouse was my secret. Maybe I would write something for Mr. Rosen after all; then I’d really have a reason to go back and ask questions. I began to feel calm, not rushed. I had time, no need to feel stress. My hair was brushed; my dress was on the bed. I’d be ready in two minutes.…
I awoke to a knock on the door. My neck hurt and I felt the imprint of my wedding ring pressed into my forehead. There was another knock, louder this time, and I jumped to my feet. What time was it? It was pitch black outside. I smoothed down my hair and the dress I’d been wearing all day, catching a glimpse of the clean “meeting” outfit still lying on my bed as I rushed to open the door.
“Well, well, well. Aren’t you a naughty girl?” It was Dolly, all dressed up and slightly tipsy in an elegant evening gown with a plunging neckline and a cape draped around her shoulders. “You’re not going to be in Jeanie’s good books anymore.” She laughed and walked into my room. “My God, you look like you’ve just woken from a nightmare,” she said with a laugh and a look of concern. She tilted my chin upwards and looked in my eyes. “Are you okay, Beatrice?”
“I don’t know what happened!” I said. “I must have fallen asleep. I was planning on coming to the meeting and I just fell asleep. Dear God. What time is it?”
“Darling it’s two a.m. Don’t worry; the meeting was an absolute bore as usual. But you missed a party at the yacht club casino; I even won some money.” She took some notes from her pocket and waved them around.
“But, Jeanie—”
“Oh, Jeanie can shove it up her enormous—”
“Dolly!” I said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said in more of a whisper this time, “Jeanie will find another poor young woman to order around and you should be grateful you got out before you got in!”
I shook my head. Maybe I wasn’t going to succeed in having Jeanie as a friend, but I certainly didn’t want her as my enemy.
“Cheer up, darling,” Dolly said. “You look like you need to get out and have some fun. There’s music and entertainment at the Surf Club tomorrow evening.” She blew me a kiss, then turned toward the door, stumbling a little. “I’ll come by around six to pick you up.”
14
I loved to be near the ocean. Growing up in the middle of Pennsylvania, Charlie and I never had the luxury of the beach at our doorstep. For a few years, though, starting when I was around age eight or nine, Daddy would drive the four of us down to New Jersey and we’d stay for a week at a little inn just a few short blocks from the beach.
On the beach my brother and I would play for hours and hours and hours. We’d be running, swimming, collecting, digging and building. And he indulged me, too, letting me play girly childish games.
“This one, Charlie, was given to me by an emperor,” I would say, holding up my newly found shell, brushing off the sand, rinsing it in the salty water that licked our toes.
“That’s a keeper,” he’d say, nodding to the buckets we carried. “Add it to the collection.”
I wished I could be back there on the sand with him holding our treasure chests in one hand, collecting jewels with the other.
We’d collect and collect until our arms were stretched out behind us as we dragged our full buckets back up the beach to the lounge chairs. I always liked the end of the beach day best, when most of the full-dayers had packed up their parasols and headed home. Daddy let me stay longer when I was with Charlie. The dogs were out then, past six, and we would try to pet them as they bounded by, leaping in the air, barking gratitude for freedom. We’d sit on the sand and line up the shells and rocks, watching the early evening swimmers glide into the lavender horizon.
Sometimes I yearned for that forever feeling—those hours that stretched into days and days into a week, without a thought for tomorrow. It was simple then. We wore swimsuits all day and we slept long and deeply at night, eager for it all to start again the next day, never thinking for a second that another day wouldn’t come.
Whenever we got home and back into our normal lives, Charlie playing with the neighborhood boys and me back with my friends or at home with my mother, I missed him. Even though we were under the same roof, eating meals at the dinner table together, it was different from those forever days at the beach.
* * *
Dolly and I sat at the bar that looked out on to the beach and sipped our martinis, listening to the waves behind us and the guitarist strumming away softly at the end of the bar. Dolly was in a mellow mood and I was spinning the stem of my glass thinking about Charlie, wondering what he’d be like now as a man, what advice he might give me about the sad state of my marriage.
The place was fairly busy for a weekday night. I’d been avoiding Jeanie and her minions all day. Ever since Dolly left the night before I’d been in a panic about the repercussions of missing Jeanie’s meeting. I’d heard stories of her, and women like her, in the city. They might seem petty and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but their ability to ruin your reputation if they felt betrayed or disrespected in any way could cripple a person’s place in society. And if that happened Harry would be furious. I would get back into Jeanie’s good books, I told myself as I glanced over to their table on the terrace, but not today. I simply didn’t have it in me. Harry would be arriving in a few days and a strained weekend would unfold—fake conversation at group dinner tables and the rest of the time him finding ways to avoid me, busying himself with hunting and fishing and smoking cigars with the men, all so we wouldn’t have to be alone together. The whole idea sat like a lead weight in my stomach. That and the thought of who he’d been waking up next to in our bed that week in the city.
I turned to Dolly. “How many of these women’s husbands do you think have cheated?” I asked.
“All of them,” she said, nonchalantly, taking a sip of her martini.
“All of them! That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
“No,” she said. “All men cheat.”
“Why do you say that?”
She looked at me as if I had a few screws loose. “Because they do. Men cheat, and women, God bless their little hearts”—she looked over to the table with Jeanie and Clarissa and Kathleen, who were all laughing over something—“women put up with it or pretend it’s not happening. Most women think that if they are good little wives that run the house, keep themselves beautiful and nurture their children, then they can will their husbands to remain faithful.”
I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again. “Well,” I tried, but nothing followed.
“Honey, men are simply made that way. They need to be fulfilled or they look elsewhere; I’ve told you that already.” She tapped a cigarette out of the box and offered one to me. “And,” she continued, “if most of these women knew what was good for them they would have their affairs, too; it evens the score.”
“Evens
the score?” I repeated, horrified but intrigued that Dolly actually believed this.
“All good relationships are based on balance and harmony and if only one part of the couple is having some excitement then the balance is off.” She inhaled deeply from her cigarette, then lit mine. “Anyway, why do you ask? Who are you worried about?” She looked over to Jeanie’s table again.
“Oh, no one in particular, I was just curious. So are you saying that Clark cheats, and you? Do you cheat?”
“Honey, don’t sound so troubled by it all, and please stop calling it cheating; it sounds so criminal. We’ve had our share of affairs, darling; of course we have. How do you think we’ve stayed in love for so long?”
I took a gulp from my martini and set it down.
“Another round?” Dolly asked.
I nodded and Dolly snapped her fingers for the barkeep. I’d never considered for a moment that all men strayed, and the thought of it sickened me. Why bother with any of it, the big ceremony, playing house, having children, if you’d rather be with other people? I thought I was one of the few unlucky women stuck with a cheating bastard and the idea that I wasn’t alone in that, strangely, didn’t give me any sort of comfort. In fact, the idea of other husbands being unfaithful to other women only added fuel to my rage against Harry. It was them against us, those slick, moneymaking, city-dwelling, train-taking men in their suits and hats and suspenders, against us, the women who had been shipped out to this quiet little beach town out of the way so they could have their fun. I was furious. I considered Dolly’s point and wondered if one affair really could cancel the other out.
* * *
On Friday evening the women stood three deep at the platform and buzzed with excitement as the train pulled in. Once the men arrived the weekend would officially start and the party could begin.
“Here they come!” someone called out. “Gee, I really missed him this week,” I heard one woman say. “It’s so hard to be away from him for so long.” I wondered how much of this display and chatter was intended to give off the image of the perfect marriage, the perfect life, the perfect wife. I felt a sense of obligation to be there and that was it. Each woman found her man in the crowd and walked arm in arm with him to their chauffeur.
I was one of three women left. Still a trickle of men emerged from the train, one or two obviously drunk, but Harry wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t even bothered to let me know.
I skipped dinner and had already changed into my silk nightgown by nine o’clock. I lay in bed and read. Either he’d show up or he wouldn’t, I thought and at that moment I rather preferred that he not show up at all.
A little after 4:00 a.m. I heard the door unlock and clank against the chain bolt I’d put across it. The bedside lamps were still on and my book was lying across my chest. I got up to unlock the door in a sleepy daze.
“Beatrice,” Harry whispered, smelling of liquor and kissing my unresponsive mouth. “I’m so sorry, I had to work late. Thank goodness I was able to get on the late train. Fisherman’s Special, left at one a.m.”
I shook my head and climbed back into bed.
“Oh, don’t be sore with me, sweetheart,” he said, taking off his brown loafers and throwing his suit and tie on the chair.
“You didn’t even leave a message for me,” I said into the pillow, my eyes closed, hoping that I would be able to return to sleep as quickly as I’d been woken from it.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said. “Look, you’re tired; we’ll talk more in the morning.”
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep again. My muscles felt tight beneath my skin and my stomach clenched. I didn’t move. I faked sleep until I heard snoring from Harry’s side of the bed; then I lay on my back and stared up at the ceiling until the sun came up.
* * *
Harry was sitting in bed reading the newspaper and drinking coffee when I returned from an early morning swim.
“Morning,” he said. “Nice swim?”
“Fine,” I said.
“That’s fabulous, darling.” He slurped his coffee and gave the newspaper a flick to make it stand straight at attention.
“Beatrice, I’ve invited the Turners to join us for lunch today at Gurney’s; you don’t mind, do you?”
I flipped my head over and rubbed my hair roughly with the towel.
“Oh, and this evening there’s a bit of gambling going on at the yacht club and I told the men they could count me in. You know I don’t indulge in that too often, so I assumed you wouldn’t mind, give you a chance to do something with the ladies.”
I stood up and brushed my hair straight down my back.
“As a matter of fact, Harry, I do mind,” I said, standing in front of him in wet swim clothes and a robe. “I haven’t seen you all week; I barely saw you last weekend while you were here. You show up at four a.m. with no valid explanation and now you’re telling me you’re leaving me alone again tonight and you’ve crammed our only time together with the Turners?” I flung my hairbrush on the dresser, where it slid over and crashed into the mirror, creating more drama than I had intended. But I held strong, hands on my hips.
“Darling, you’re upset. Don’t be. You know how I like to see everyone when I get out here.”
“Yes, everyone but me,” I said.
“I want to see you, too.”
“I’m your wife, God damn it. You should want to see me, but instead you use up all your free time dallying around with other women in the city while I’m out here.” I held my breath, staring him down. I couldn’t believe I’d said it. It was out there now, acknowledged, verbalized. I might have just ruined everything. I didn’t dare breathe. Or blink. Or move.
His face was one of total shock. He knew of course that I was aware of his philandering, but he seemed genuinely stunned and unprepared for me to confront him in this way. We were both frozen until his face softened and he rubbed his forehead with his hand.
“Come here, Beatrice, please.” He stretched his arms out to me, reaching for me. I sat on the bed next to him and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling my head to his chest. “I’ve been such an idiot, such a fool. I have this beautiful woman, my beautiful wife, right in front of me and I’ve taken you for granted; I haven’t given you the attention you need and deserve.” He kissed the top of my head and talked into my damp hair. “All that’s over now. I promise you, it’s over. It’s just you and me, I swear to you.”
I was tempted to leave it at that. The more we spoke of his infidelity, the more it could become etched in my brain and harder to forget. I wanted to let it go, but I couldn’t.
“But why?” was all I could muster, and it came out like a tiny mouse-like squeak.
He sighed a heavy-hearted sigh. “I don’t know.” He said, “It was stupid; there’s no explanation for it. I just…”
He paused and I looked up at him. “You just what?”
“Well, you’ve been unhappy; I know you wanted a baby and it’s made you quite melancholy. And you complain when I go out, but you don’t understand, these are business dinners. Who else is going to make the money for us to live the life we live?”
I felt scooped out from the inside. Hollow. I was unhappy, he was right, but I hadn’t always been. It made me unhappy that he was out sleeping with other women. And yes, I was sad that I wasn’t with child, but I thought I’d kept that to myself for the most part. Had I really driven him to step out of our marriage? I felt sick and guilty and angry.
“I’m not unhappy,” I said, wiping away the tears.
“It would be good for us to have a baby. I think it would be good for you. It would give you something to do. You’d feel more useful; you wouldn’t have all these ideas in your head. You’d have more to talk to the other women about, don’t you think?”
“But we’ve tried,” I said, sitting up. “I’ve tried so hard. We even saw Dr. Lombardi, remember.”
“But we should really try this time. We’ll go to th
e best doctors; whatever it costs, we’ll pay it. We’ll spend more time together. It will be just about you and me, no one else.”
He squeezed me tighter into his chest and I couldn’t breathe. I could no longer see his face nor he mine, so I nodded. I wanted a baby more than anything. I knew I had enough love inside of me to make a happy life for a little child; I just knew it. Harry was not the perfect man and I had spent hours lying in bed alone, staring at the ceiling waiting for the click of the door to open or for the crack of light to shine into the bedroom to show that he was home, and in those hours I’d thought about how I could leave him, how I could experience true happiness, if that was even a possibility or just a fantasy. If I walked away I’d probably never have a baby. I’d be shunned, I’d be disowned and my chance at motherhood would pass me by forever.
“Okay, sweetheart?” he said. “Let’s really try this time.”
I nodded just a little, not sure what I was agreeing to.
15
The waiting room was cold and devoid of color except for a thin bottle-green carpet. White walls were bare, with no hanging pictures of babies or happy families, or any other image that might help one think positive thoughts during her visit. I sat bolt upright in a metal chair in the opposite corner from the only other people, a concerned-looking couple, huddled together, he holding her hand in both of his. They looked thin and frail, especially the woman, the skin under her eyes a bluish grey, giving the impression that you could see everything going on under the surface of this woman. Maybe she wouldn’t even need to disrobe; the doctor would simply take a look at her pale, almost transparent skin and would know immediately the solution to their problem. Perhaps he’d tell her she needed to take more sun or to eat more iron-rich chopped liver, cooked kidney or tripe and then she’d become impregnated.
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