Five Women

by Rona Jaffe

  She took the jitney out to Amagansett and spent the weekend in her little gray house on the beach. At sunset, when the sky was golden, she stood on her deck and looked out over the ocean. She had never been a religious person in a formal sense. She believed in God, but she didn’t know if God was the spirit that made the universe work or a person. As a child, looking at pictures of the stern, robed, bearded old men in her schoolbooks, she had mistaken the prophets for God himself, and had been intimidated, and had withdrawn. Now, looking at the line of the water that blended into the sky, Gara felt a spiritual presence. She knew God was there, and that he was on her side, and that he was ready to listen. Her doctors had told her that a five-year survival was the benchmark, that after five years of being cancer-free you were considered cured. Five years suddenly seemed a long time, but a short time for all the things she wanted to appreciate, especially life itself.

  “God,” she said to him silently, “I want to live. Give me five years, and then we’ll renegotiate.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  FELICITY FELT LIKE A CAGED CAT, bristling, tail twitching, wanting to get out, wanting to hide, snarling, unable to stay still. She kept up the pretense of a precise, efficient lawyer all week but never parted from her cellular phone, returning obsessively to her computer, waiting for Jason to summon her to fill up her emptiness; and on weekends she was still a secret bulimic, filling her emptiness herself, vomiting to hide the evidence. Day after day, year after year, her unhappy life just seemed to go on without changing. Time stretched and shrank with its own logic, the hours were endless. She felt wrapped in a fog of grief and confusion and self-hatred, struggling just to survive.

  Russell still refused to go to a marriage counselor, and she was afraid to divorce him and be all alone. She was getting closer to forty now, and even though she looked much younger, she was aware every day that her life was passing her by. She deserved more than to be so miserable with an angry husband who thought he was her father, to be surviving on the too-brief hours of her dangerous love affair with a man who would never marry her, but she didn’t know how to change anything; she felt doomed somehow, cursed and beaten.

  That was when she finally decided to see a therapist. She knew, at last, that she just couldn’t fix things by herself.

  Her therapist was a feisty little white woman of fifty who let Felicity call her by her first name: Florette. Once a week Felicity sat on the couch across from Florette’s chair in her dimly lit office, surrounded by faded chintz that was so frumpy and unpretentious it reassured her somehow, and wept. She talked about her childhood and it seemed that the childhood pain she had pushed to the back of her mind so she could continue to exist had only been waiting for her to let it leap in, full center stage, strong and alive. When she relived it, breaking into tears, Felicity waited for the catharsis she had thought would come afterward, but she was just as upset afterward if not more so.

  “When will I ever get over those terrible memories?” she asked Florette. “It makes it worse to talk about them.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I don’t know. When can I clean up my act? I hate my life.”

  “You’re very insightful, but it takes time for the things you discover here to actually sink in.”

  “I really want to leave Russell.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “I’ll never live in a house like that again,” Felicity murmured sadly, thinking how she loved it.

  “The princess locked in the castle?”

  “More like Cinderella.”

  “You have a good job, you make enough money to take care of yourself. You can move into your own apartment. This is New York; he would have to give you a settlement because he’s much richer than you are. You aren’t Cinderella.”

  “I could marry someone else and get a better house,” Felicity said.

  “You probably could, but why do you always want to be rescued?”

  “Maybe because nobody ever rescued me when I was a child.”

  They sat there for a while in silence.

  “I never enjoyed being in my house,” Felicity said, “because Russell was in it.”

  “Then this is not about a house.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “Pretend you are a house,” Florette said.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Say ‘I am a house,’ and describe yourself.”

  Felicity pictured a room. “The floor boards are rotting,” she said. “It’s not safe . . . I have to watch my step or I’ll fall right through. The walls are tilted, not right . . . I feel . . .”

  “You feel . . . ?”

  “Scared.”

  “When you can describe yourself as a safe, well-constructed house where you aren’t scared, then you won’t need Russell or Jason,” Florette said. “You have to learn to believe in yourself.”

  It was Christmas now, and Felicity bought presents for both her husband and her lover. Her firm had done very well this year and the partners had decided to have a cocktail party in their offices. These days at office Christmas parties, spouses were encouraged to come, for the sake of propriety and to keep anyone from getting drunk and doing something that might be embarrassing. Nobody had a good time and they always left as early as they could. Still, you had to show up.

  Russell refused to go with her. He said he had a meeting, but she knew that wasn’t the reason. He didn’t like being Mr. Felicity Johnson in her world; he wanted to be the rich, successful Russell Naylor in his. Felicity ordinarily would have been delighted that Russell wasn’t going to come and stand in the corner looking sulky and judgmental the way he always did at parties given by her friends, not his, but she knew the firm’s big clients had been invited, and Jason might be there with his wife, so she didn’t want to go alone and unprotected. If Jason was going to bring his wife and pretend to be happy, then she wanted to be able to hang on to her own husband’s arm and pretend to be happy too.

  “After the meeting I’ll just be home watching the game,” Russell said. “Take your time.”

  Christmas decorations were up, and there was a large fir tree in the reception area, decorated with doves of peace so it wouldn’t be too religious and offend anyone of another faith. There was a bartender, and a bar. The attorneys who weren’t married had brought dates. Felicity sipped a glass of white wine, looking around, and realized she was the only person who was there alone. Then she saw Jason walk in with a woman she knew was his wife, and her stomach churned with anxiety.

  “Hello, Felicity,” he said, cordially but very formally, to make it clear that theirs was purely a professional relationship. If he’s any more formal, Felicity thought, she’ll know for sure.

  “Hello, Jason. Merry Christmas,” Felicity said.

  “Merry Christmas. Felicity Johnson, this is my wife, Thelma.”

  She’s a dumpy middle-aged woman, Felicity thought, encouraged, but still she felt sad and left out. “Hello, Thelma,” she said, holding out her hand, smiling. While the two women shook hands Felicity could see Jason from the corner of her eye, and she wondered if he still wanted her. He was looking so noncommittal. She wanted to run away.

  Jason took Thelma’s arm and walked her to the bar. Felicity didn’t know what to do so she turned away and busied herself with being charming to everyone she knew, and then she glanced back at Jason and caught him looking longingly at her. She felt happy immediately. He did still want her! His wife was apparently oblivious. Felicity wondered if she should leave right now to make him jealous, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave before he did. She went over to talk to Jack Allsop, a brilliant trial lawyer trapped in a nerd’s face and body, who always looked damp. Behind his back the secretaries called him “Allslop.” He was with a very attractive, intense-looking woman with a lot of long red hair.

  “Hey, Jack!” Felicity said jovially, with a bi
g grin, “Are we having fun yet?”

  “No, we’re not,” the woman said.

  “This is Eve Bader,” Jack said, introducing his companion. “And this is Felicity Johnson.”

  They shook hands. Felicity noticed that Eve Bader’s hand was almost preternaturally hot, as if she was running a fever. “You’re a lawyer here?” Eve said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m an actress.”

  “Really? How interesting.”

  “I just closed in a show off-Broadway, Trashed Cars. Did you see it?”

  “No,” Felicity said. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” she said brightly. “It only played two performances.” She smiled and Felicity laughed. “But I got a lot of movie interest from it.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful.”

  “Eve was in a soap opera for five years,” Jack said proudly. “People stop her on the street.”

  “I’d like to get away from all that,” Eve said. “I’m a serious actress.”

  How up and alive she seemed, such a life force, such an optimist, Felicity thought. Such a contrast to me. I wish I had so much energy.

  “Why don’t you get us drinks?” Eve said to Jack.

  “Be back in a minute,” he said. “Felicity?”

  “Sure.”

  “So what kind of law do you do?” Eve asked.

  “Publishing, mostly. How long do you know Jack?”

  “He’s just a friend. I’m not going out with any more civilians. They’re even sicker than actors, and actors are sick enough.”

  Felicity laughed. For the first few moments she had been so taken by Eve’s presence and energy that she hadn’t even noticed what she was wearing, which was unusual because she was very conscious of clothes. She looked now, and was surprised to see that Eve was wearing a formal black tail coat, the kind a man would wear, with a bit of flirty white lace showing under it, and a very short black leather skirt.

  “Nice outfit,” Felicity said, although she wasn’t sure whether she meant it.

  “Thank you. One of my thrift shop specials. I don’t believe clothes make the woman; the woman makes the clothes.”

  Felicity smiled. She glanced at Jason, and saw that he was still looking at her. She was actually beginning to have a good time. Before she met this outrageous woman she had felt too vulnerable, but she didn’t anymore.

  “Which one here is your husband?” Eve asked, having seen Felicity’s wedding ring.

  “Oh, he’s not here. He doesn’t like parties.”

  “Never?”

  “Not often.”

  “Are there any playwrights or screenwriters here?” Eve asked, swiveling her head.

  “Some. But we handle mostly novelists and nonfiction writers.”

  “Mmm,” Eve said. “Well, they’re good to know too because they might have projects. Can you introduce me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Come on.”

  When Jack came back looking for them, with glasses of white wine for them in his hands, they were already across the room. He looked over at Eve, crestfallen. Felicity felt sorry for him, but she had never seen anyone operate like Eve Bader and she was also fascinated. Eve had an abrupt way of talking and she almost crackled. She cut a swath through the party with Felicity in tow as the liaison, getting writers’ business cards and giving out her own, which had her name and number and her agent’s name and number on them. On the bottom of her card below the two phone numbers there was a tiny drawing of two birds, and the line: Kill two birds with one stone.

  “I designed it myself,” Eve said. “Business and personal, get it?”

  “It’s great,” Felicity said. Eve handed her one.

  “We ought to go out and have a drink some time,” Eve said. “Does your husband let you out when there isn’t a party?”

  “He doesn’t like to,” Felicity said. “But I would like to.”

  “We’ll find some new places, have some fun. You know, get a group of interesting women together, compare ideas.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Give me your card and put your home number on it,” Eve said, holding out her hand.

  Felicity gave her the card. When she looked around for Jason again she realized he and his wife had gone. She felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach, as if an elevator had gone down too fast. He has a right to go home with his wife, she reminded herself, trying to be sane, I have to go home to my husband—but it hurt just the same. She felt abandoned and unloved. She always dreaded going home to Russell, but she wondered if Jason really minded going home with his long-suffering mommy-wife after all. When would she ever get over this obsession?

  Jack made his way to Eve’s side through the thinning crowd. He had one glass of wine in his hand and he gave it to Felicity. “Where’s my wine?” Eve demanded.

  “I couldn’t find you so I gave it to someone else,” he said.

  “That’s how you treat me?” she said. “I’ll get my own.”

  “Get one for me, then,” Jack said.

  “You don’t drink.”

  Felicity laughed. Something about Eve somehow cheered her up. “You guys fighting,” she said. “You’re going to fall in love.”

  “No love for me,” Eve said. “Sex and my career. That’s it. Love makes you interested in the wrong things.”

  “Like commitment,” Jack said. “And intimacy.”

  “I have a commitment to my career and I’m intimate with my life,” Eve said. “No more broken hearts. They’re a waste of time.”

  “I’m going to call you,” Felicity said.

  So that was how she became friendly with Eve Bader, a kind of woman she had never known in all her life. After a while Felicity began to think no one had ever known anyone like Eve. This was neither a compliment nor a criticism but simply an observation. They met for drinks, and told each other their life stories. Each, of course, left some things out—whatever was too humiliating or too private—but they confided enough to feel they were friends. They met again, a few weeks later, and then more frequently, and then regularly, and eventually Felicity told Eve she was having an affair. Eve already knew she was miserable in her marriage. Felicity never told her the name of her lover; she always referred to him as “my friend.” Even though she enjoyed Eve’s humor and energy, there was something in Eve, even after all this time, that she didn’t quite trust enough to confide such a thing, something about Eve that was at the same time recklessly volatile and curiously cold.

  It was only after a year that she stopped liking Eve, that the things she had found amusing and eccentric about her finally became annoying; but by then there was nothing she could do to separate from her without using a blowtorch, and Felicity was too sensitive to hurt anyone’s feelings. She didn’t know what flaw it was that made her such a bad judge of people. She had adored Russell and she had been delighted by Eve, and now she saw them both so differently. The only person she knew wouldn’t change was Jason, but what she was afraid of was that he would leave her.

  She still fed off Eve’s optimism and energy, particularly when she was depressed and lonely, but she also didn’t know why she put up with Eve’s egotism and insensitivity and just plain embarrassing bad manners. Sometimes she almost liked being with Eve, but most of the time she wished Eve would stop calling her.

  It made her feel even more vulnerable than ever to think she knew so little about human nature, to be suckered in that way and then disappointed, as she was with her friend; even betrayed, as she had been with her husband. Sometimes she talked about the problem with her therapist, but there were no answers. It was not a question of having changed and matured through time, or through therapy, but an actual blind spot. She had absolutely no shrewdness, no guile, no instinct to protect her from the wrong people until it was much too late.

  Cha
pter Thirty-three

  GARA WONDERED if she should tell Carl that she had cancer. For what purpose, she wondered. To get his sympathy? To bond? Because we once loved each other so much and he will care? To make him feel guilty that he deserted me to deal with this terrifying tragedy alone? He never called her anymore, and she knew she would have to call him because she didn’t want to write a letter. If she called him, Lucie was likely to answer. Gara pictured him alarmed, flying to New York to see her, offering checks for her huge medical expenses. Then she pictured him saying he was sorry about what had befallen her, and never calling again. She didn’t want to deal with either of these possibilities, since solicitousness would make her weaken and love him again and coldheartedness would make her angry, which was not good for her, so she kept putting it off.

  Dr. Beddowes confirmed their original decision that a mastectomy had been the only choice, since the biopsy afterward had revealed three kinds of cancer in Gara’s breast, which she said was very common. One was in the milk ducts, one under the nipple, and the other was a marker for possible eventual cancer in either breast.

  “But let’s assume that it was a marker for the cancer you already had,” Dr. Beddowes told her optimistically.

  “But what if it’s not?”

  “Later on, when you’ve finished your chemotherapy, I’ll probably give you tamoxifen to keep you from getting it in the other breast, just as a precaution, and only because it’s good for your bones and will keep you from getting osteoporosis when you’re older. Tamoxifen suppresses the estrogen in your body, but it has a side effect of acting just like estrogen on the bones and cholesterol.”

  Chemotherapy, tamoxifen . . . estrogen suppression . . . would she ever have sex again?

  One of the friends Gara had told introduced her to two other women who had had mastectomies. The three of them had dinner together. Both of the other women were married. They were both three-year survivors. One had been between two health insurance policies and found herself not covered: she’d had her mastectomy and a reconstruction from a flap of muscle in her abdomen done in a public hospital by a resident. She said he was very kind.