“M’aam?” he said.
Maggie squinted in the gloom for a moment and then she approached the bar and sat on one of the high stools.
“M’aam,” the bartender said once again. He was tall and tough and he was looking at her as if she didn’t belong here.
“Scotch,” she said, “on the rocks.”
“Johnny Walker? Chivas? Or the house scotch?”
She gave him her social smile, forgetting where she was. “House scotch will be fine,” she said.
He placed the drink before her, on a napkin, and walked to the other end of the bar. He busied himself polishing glasses.
Maggie shifted uncomfortably on the stool. She had never been to a bar by herself, ever, and now that she thought of it, not with Philip either. They weren’t bar people. Maybe that’s what was wrong with them. Maybe that’s what was “slowing things down” between them, as Philip had said. Slowing things down indeed. That fool. That idiot. He understood nothing. She looked over at the two kids playing pool and was surprised to see, now that her eyes had adjusted to the shimmering reds and yellows and greens, that they were not kids at all, just skinny guys in tee shirts and jeans with a lot of messy hair. They were in their twenties at least, maybe older. They had that druggy look. All bones, caved-in chests, pelvises at the ready. One of them was staring at her. She turned away and finished up her drink.
The bartender, without looking, seemed to know she was ready for another. He raised his eyebrows—a question—and she nodded. He poured her a second scotch and went back to polishing glasses.
She finished her second drink and waited for him to notice. He didn’t. “Bartender,” she said. He kept on polishing glasses. “Bartender,” she said, more loudly this time. Still no response. She tapped the glass against the bar until he turned toward her.
“I need another drink,” she said.
He came down the length of the bar and looked at her. “You all right?” he said softly. He looked straight into her eyes.
Maggie thought, I could love him, I could be somebody for him, I could make him happy. His face was squarish, pock-marked, and he had a thick sand-colored mustache. Forty or so. He was wearing a Hard Rock Cafe tee shirt and she wanted to put her hand on his chest, right where it said Rock.
“M’aam?” he said.
She returned his direct look. “I’m fine,” she said. “Or at least I’m gonna be fine. It’s been a very bad day.”
As he poured her another drink, she said, “Buck’s Neon Palace. Are you Buck?”
He passed the drink across the bar, thought for a moment, and then said, “Yes. I’m Buck.” He stood before her, folded his arms across his chest, and then opened them and leaned back against the wall of bottles behind the bar. “Buck,” he said.
Maggie felt her face flush. She shook her head.
He was looking at her.
It was her move.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not myself.” She put a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “Is that enough?” she said.
Buck nodded, looking at her still.
She left and drove home slowly, carefully. She took two Halcion and went straight to bed.
Philip stood by the bed and watched her sleep. She looked like death. He had seen this day coming—the final exam, her final failure—and he had done nothing to prevent it.
She was out, gone, and one day she would be gone for good.
Who was she? He didn’t know any longer.
He leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “Sleep,” he said, and was horrified to hear in his own mind, just for a second, perhaps only a millisecond, “and never wake up.”
13
Everything would be different from now on, Philip decided. He would make Maggie’s emotional salvation the first order of business. Not teaching, not research, not writing, but Maggie first and only. He would become a different man, definitely. He would continue, of course, to be the loving, supportive husband who listened and cared. No, correct that, he would begin to be a loving, supportive husband who cared. He would listen, really listen, to her. He would anticipate her needs, her fears, her insecurities. He would make her feel loved and valued. He stood by her bed thinking these things.
And then he thought, What a crock of shit. He was a psychiatrist, for God’s sake, and knew that emotional salvation is a personal thing, nobody can do it for you, you do it yourself or you’re damned.
He went downstairs and made himself a gin and tonic. Rather a festive drink when your wife is laid out upstairs, unconscious, but it was late August and hot as hell and let them all go fuck themselves.
The problem, as he saw it, was that course in literary theory. It was gobbledygook, Maggie claimed, it was a way of making lit crit the private property of the indoctrinated, the blessed few, the tenured professoriate. Suppose she was right and theory was just gobbledygook. The fact would still remain that if she wanted to get her Ph.D., she would have to read and understand and probably even teach theory. And, as she was demonstrating at this very moment, she couldn’t. She couldn’t read it or understand it or teach it.
What she needed was a little more backbone.
How cruel he was and what a terrible shrink. What a terrible human being. “A little more backbone”: there was not a manic-depressive, not a schizophrenic, not a serial killer in the world to whom he’d say such a thing. And yet here he was saying it to his own wife. Or at least thinking it.
He poured himself another drink and went upstairs and sat in her lady chair. He would keep vigil. And when she awoke, he would be loving and understanding. He would really try this time.
“I’m calling to ask how she did on the exam,” Beecher said. “I know she did wonderfully, but I think it’s nice to ask and give her a chance to talk about it, don’t you? To dwell on it? It’s not easy going back to school after all these years, believe me, I know, even though I never did it myself actually, but I mean I can understand it. Can I talk to Maggie and just ask her myself?”
Philip explained that Maggie was lying down. It had been an exhausting day. Perhaps she could call back tomorrow or the next day. Or sometime.
“Oh,” Beecher said. “Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound good at all, does it. Do you think it does? She didn’t do well, is that it? And she’s disappointed. Not really disappointed, I hope, not badly enough to give up on her degree. Oh, dear.”
“Beecher,” Philip said firmly.
“I should stop, that’s what you’re saying. I’ll call tomorrow. I’ll invite her to lunch. I’d like to be of some use, Philip, you know that. You do know that.”
Philip said he knew that.
“Oh, dear,” Beecher said and, reluctantly, hung up the phone.
Maggie woke that night and she did not know where she was. She kept her eyes closed and tried to remember. The last thing she could recall was some psychedelic bar, with a neon glow surrounding everything, and a feeling of terror that she would fall and keep on falling and never come back. And then, in a rush, the whole day returned to her: Buck’s Neon Palace, the drive home, a lot of pills. And before that, the nightmare of the final exam. She covered her face with her hands and waited. Finally she opened her eyes.
It was dark in the room except for a small reading light over by the lady chair. She turned her head on the pillow and looked. Philip was sitting there, reading. She hated him.
“Hello, sweet,” he said. “How are you doing?”
She closed her eyes.
“Can I get you something, Maggie? Some water?” He went into the bathroom and let the water run until it was cold. He brought her the glass and said, “Take a little sip.”
She turned her face away from him.
“Not a little sip? I’ll leave it on the nightstand and you can have it later if you’re thirsty. Okay?”
He sat down on the side of the bed, carefully.
“Can I get you anything?” he said.
He said, “Are you okay?”
And he said, “Do you no
t want to talk about it?”
She said nothing and so he got up and went back to the chair and picked up his book. “I’ll just sit here, okay?” he said.
She watched him for a while and then she got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She used the toilet and flushed it and began to open the medicine chest for a Tylenol. She stopped. He would hear her and think she was taking Halcion or something. She always kept a few drugs in the medicine chest to throw him off the trail; the big stash was in the closet hidden among her shoes. Still, he’d suspect something if he heard the medicine chest open and close. She went out and got into bed.
“Okay?” he said.
“So now you’re spying on me?” she said.
“I’m concerned,” he said. “That’s all.”
“And so you’re spying on me.”
“Maggie,” he said.
“Maggie,” she said, imitating the concern in his voice, exaggerating it, making it sound fake. “Maggie,” she said again, and turned on her side and closed her eyes.
He sat there for a while, silent, and then he said, “I’ll let you sleep. If you’d like some hot soup or something when you wake up, just call me and I’ll make it for you. Okay?”
He went over to the bed. “Okay?”
She covered her eyes with her hand.
“You sleep,” he said. He turned off the light and went downstairs to his study. He took down a paperback, Memory in Chains, and tried to read it, but it was sensational and at the same time predictable—case histories tarted up for shock value—and he sat there with the book in his lap, trying not to think.
Across the street and one house down, Dixie Kizer sat in her little MG, watching. She saw the light go off in the bedroom and then a moment later she saw the light go on in the study. They might be sitting there together, Philip and Maggie, reading, or perhaps even snuggling on the couch. Or the two of them in a big armchair, Maggie in his lap, Philip touching her breasts, gently, gently, the way he had touched her own on that night in the sunroom. But maybe Maggie was a drunk—she had been drunk that night at the Gaspards—and so Philip wouldn’t want to touch her at all. No. He must be alone, studying or writing, trying to get back to his normal life, trying to forget they had had that one night together. But she could not forget. She would never forget. She resisted the temptation to get out of the car, cross the lawn, and lean in through the bushes and look. She would not do that to him. She would not let herself go that far.
She started the car and drove away, slowly.
Maggie did not come down for breakfast the next morning, so after a long wait, Philip brought up some coffee and put it on the nightstand beside the bed.
“I brought you some coffee,” he whispered.
Maggie turned her face deeper into the pillow.
Downstairs he packed up his briefcase and was at the door ready to leave when he heard the shower upstairs. So she was awake. He would wait for her to come down. He would act perfectly natural. He would not mention a thing about the exam or about her being drunk or about anything at all. He’d just make her feel … good.
He checked his watch and then went to the telephone and called his office. He would be delayed, he told his secretary, and she would have to reschedule his first patient for another hour. He never rescheduled patients, so of course she thought it was some big emergency.
“Are you sick?” she said. “Are you going to be all right?”
He told her he was fine.
“Is there anything I can do? Anybody I can contact for you?”
He was fine, he’d be an hour late, that’s all.
There was a little pause and she said, “Philip?”
She never called him Philip and something about the way she said his name startled him.
He laughed, a reassuring laugh, and said, “Hey, not to worry, I just have to reschedule an appointment. Be there shortly.” And he hung up.
He was upset, though. He went into his study and sat down at his desk. He could see what was happening. He was becoming a different person and his secretary sensed it and was responding to it. He was in danger of becoming like one of his own patients, unable to see life because he could see only his life. Or rather her life, Maggie’s. And that way they both would be lost.
Upstairs the shower stopped. So Maggie would be down in a few minutes and he should be busy at something and not look as if he’d been waiting for her. He shuffled the correspondence on his desk. Some bills, a catalog from Hammacher Schlemmer he’d been meaning to look through, postcards from Emma, a letter from Cole. He should write Cole and reassure him that everything at home was fine. He should write Emma.
But where was Maggie? There were no sounds of her moving around upstairs. Could she have gone back to bed? He moved from his desk to his chair and leafed through an old New Yorker. The cartoons were all familiar, and not funny either, and then he realized why. It was the same issue he had flipped through the night that he had driven around and around and ended up at Dixie Kizer’s house. He got up and went to the kitchen and stuffed the magazine deep into the trash bag. Finis. Period.
He started upstairs and turned back. He went into his study and sat, deliberately turning the pages of the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. The camping equipment. The maxi-humidifier. The electric nose-hair clipper. He read the description of each item and then checked his watch again. A half hour had passed.
He climbed the stairs, his heart beating fast, and went into the bedroom and stood by her bed. She was in a deep sleep, probably drugged. Her face looked troubled. He felt a twinge of annoyance, and then guilt, and then something that was probably pity though he hoped it was love. He left and went to work.
It was a long, anxious day.
When he got home, a little late, Maggie was cooking dinner—one of his favorites, scrambled hamburg and macaroni—and she looked rested and relaxed and beautiful.
“You look great,” he said.
“Pour yourself a drink,” she said. “This’ll keep.”
So everything was going to be fine after all.
They had dinner and talked about the kids. A letter had come from Emma, with rhapsodic descriptions of nightfall and sunrise on a barren Greek island and, mercifully, with no mention of Bubby. Cole had written about his research work, which he found occasionally boring but very fulfilling, and which had convinced him that research was his bag, not practice. “His bag,” Philip said, rereading the letter, “his bag.” Maggie smiled and said, “We’ve got to face it. English is a lost language.” “Tell me about it,” he said before he realized what he was saying. They changed the subject immediately.
And that was as close as they came to discussing her final exam in the theory course, or what happened afterward, or what would happen next.
Beecher Stubbs phoned early the next morning. She wanted to take Maggie to lunch and hear all about the final exam and the Ph.D. and everything else. Maggie said no. No lunch. Not yet. I’ll call you, she said.
Dixie Kizer phoned in mid-morning when she was sure Philip would be at work and asked if Maggie would be at school this afternoon and could they have coffee at the student union? Classes are over, school is out, Maggie explained, so no, she wouldn’t be going to the student union. Dixie dithered for a while and then asked if they could meet somewhere else? For coffee? Just to see one another? No, Maggie said. Sorry. An hour later, guilty, she phoned Dixie and made a date to meet at Starbucks at four.
And at noontime, Philip phoned and suggested they go out to dinner tonight, a treat, no special reason, just a dinner out, it might be nice. Maggie thought for a while and said, Yes, why not?
She was hanging up the phone when the doorbell rang and there stood Beecher Stubbs. She was wearing blue-green polyester pants and a billowing shirt, a lighter green, that reached halfway to her knees. She looked like a bag lady.
“It’s me,” she said, “a great big pixie,” and she did a pirouette on the front steps. “A great big old pixie.”
“Come
in,” Maggie said, but Beecher said no, she was on her way to a solitary lunch in Boston, a leaf of lettuce, some cottage cheese, an olive, something pathetic like that. She didn’t want to intrude, she just wanted to see with her very own eyes that oh so lovely face and let her know she cared. That’s why she stopped by. That was it. Period. So Maggie went to lunch with her after all.
“Well, it’s perfect,” Beecher said, “we’ve got the ladies who lunch, and I see a few of their daughters, very young, who must be in training, and there’s a peculiar-looking man over near the buffet.” Beecher made this comment, and similar ones, as they waited to be seated and then waited again to be served. Neiman Marcus, she pointed out, was still undiscovered by the tourists, at least the lunchroom was, and so it still provided the perfect place for a nice private chat. “And a very nice lunch too,” she added as the waitress approached to take their order. Beecher ordered the caneton a sauce l’orange and Maggie ordered a Cobb salad. “These pants are stretchy,” Beecher said, “a real find.” She sat back then, looking at Maggie, and for once said nothing.
“You’re an old friend, Beecher.”
Beecher nodded.
“And you’ve seen us, Philip and me, go through a lot, I guess. Our first years here, they weren’t easy by a long shot, and then Cole’s paralysis when he was nine and Emma’s anorexia and me not having a job and Philip’s tenure in the middle of everything. You’ve seen it all.”
Again Beecher nodded.
“And you’ve been a friend the whole time. You know everything about us, about me.”
“And love you both,” Beecher said.
“But this, now, I can’t talk about this.”
“No,” Beecher said.
“I can’t, I won’t.”
“No,” Beecher said again. “No, of course not.”
“You understand, I hope. I’m just trying to deal with it.”
“Of course I understand and of course you mustn’t talk about it.” Beecher was not sure what Maggie was talking about, or wouldn’t and couldn’t talk about, but she was willing not to talk about it, whatever it was. It couldn’t be the course in theory, that wouldn’t make sense. It couldn’t be Philip, could it? Well, could it? “Tell me all about Cole’s research,” Beecher said, “and about Emma’s fantastic job on that Greek island, I think it’s so exciting when your children get to do all the things you’ve wanted to do.” She paused, wondering if she had just stumbled into it: your children doing all the things you’ve wanted to do. “Tell me about Cole first of all, because that’s the least interesting. We can save Emma for dessert.”
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