“But nobody ever sees me the way you see me. Nobody ever sees that I might be serious, that I might have a real life.”
“Who ever sees anybody else, completely? We never know anybody.”
“Oh, Calvin, that’s awful.”
“It’s comic.”
“I suppose.”
“We just happen to be lucky that we found each other.” He got up off his knees, awkwardly, and then he helped Beecher up, and they went into the kitchen to prepare their dinner—tonight it was Cracklin’ Oat Bran.
They ate in silence for a while.
“Oat Squares,” Calvin said, “What more could anyone want?”
“It’s true,” Beecher said. “This is the life.”
17
They had not spoken in a day and a half. The kids had left, with feeble attempts on all sides to pretend that everything was okay, but now Philip and Maggie were on their own. Philip was determined they would talk.
“So much for the news,” Philip said, as Dan Rather said good night. He clicked off the television.
“Don’t you want to watch the local news?” Maggie said.
“It’s just the same news, only twice as long.”
Maggie shrugged and said, “I’ll get the dinner.”
“Sit here,” he said, “would you, Maggie? Please?”
“I’ll get the dinner. We have to eat, no matter what, I suppose.” But she continued to sit there on the couch. She was very pale.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what Cole said to you. I’m sorry he hurt you. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“You don’t know …,” and her face crumbled. “I felt like … I felt like some kind of animal that’s been run over in the street … I … You don’t know, you could never know.” She began to sob. She buried her face in the sofa pillows, her body shaking, and her sobs grew louder. He put his hand on her back, soothing her, but she shook more violently and the sobs became more awful, more terrifying.
Philip had cared for the criminally insane and for manic-depressives at the apex of mania and depression, and he had looked deep into his own dark mind, but he had never seen anybody so abandoned.
“You don’t know,” she screamed.
Her desperation shook him. It would break her. He couldn’t endure it.
“No! No!” he said, and there was panic in his voice, a desperation like her own. He clutched at her, he wrenched her body from the sofa into his arms and crushed her to his chest. “No,” he said, softer now, and held her close, soothing her, waiting until the hysteria passed.
The hysteria did pass finally, and they sat together on the couch, unable to talk, unable even to feel. After a long while Maggie slept, cradled in his arms, and Philip held her, determined to stay there forever if necessary, determined, in his way, to save her.
The next day was unreal, of course, and they both acted as if last night had happened weeks ago. They ate breakfast mostly in silence.
“So you’ll be all right today? While I’m at work.”
Maggie said she would be fine.
“What will you do? Will you see your … person? Your shrink person?”
“Tomorrow. But I’ll get through today. I’ll prepare my grade book and go through my notes, you know.”
“Sure, sure.”
“I’ll get ready for my first class.”
“Sure. And I’ll come home at noon, okay?”
“No!” she said, too loud, and assured him again that she would be fine.
“Is it okay if I phone?”
“Do what you want,” she said. “You will anyway.”
He got his things together and prepared to leave for work.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’re trying to help.”
Once he was gone, Maggie felt emptied out. She hated him being there, looking at her, pitying her, but she missed … what? Did she miss anything about him, or was he just a habit? Old Philip, good-looking and smart and caring—God knows, he was caring—but there was something about him she hated, or at least resented. His pity. Philip and the others, Cole and Emma, all of them pitying her.
But she must not let herself think this way. She must not let herself think at all. She got up quickly and rinsed the breakfast things and put them in the dishwasher. She bathed and dressed, mechanically. She went downstairs with her books and papers as if she were going into a classroom.
She made neat piles on the dining room table: her grade books for the past seven years, old syllabuses, photocopied handouts: on the sentence, the paragraph, the thesis, the development of the thesis. She looked at the accumulation of papers and said aloud, meaning to be funny, “Maggie Tate, this is your life!” But it wasn’t funny. It was, like her life, pitiful.
She went into the kitchen and took an aspirin and drank a glass of water. Just buck up, she told herself, it can be done.
Back at the dining table, she took her yellow legal pad and sketched out class readings and home assignments for the first week. The big thing was to challenge them and engage them. To show them that good writing was simply good thinking, clearly and forcefully expressed. Elegance could come later. Clarity was where you had to begin. What exactly do you mean? Well, say it.
“Say it,” she said, and sat back and looked around the room. It was a nice room, with an old mahogany dining set that had belonged to Philip’s mother. There was a hutch with their good wedding china, a liquor cabinet where they stored gift-wrapping stuff, and lots of extra chairs. They could seat twelve. Perhaps she should give a dinner party.
She picked up the pile of grade books, weighed them in her hands, and put them down. She flipped open the top one, from last year. The grades made a perfect curve, though she didn’t believe in curves. It had just happened that way. Two As, six Bs, six Cs, two Ds. John Pottle and Juli Corrida got Ds. Did they care? Did they go home and get drunk or take pills or think about suicide? She tried to make herself feel something for them. Fat John Pottle, eager to please, a toady in the making. Juli Corrida, who only wanted to get laid, and did, without doubt, ever day of the year. Did she feel anything for them?
She went out to the kitchen again and this time she filled the water glass with vodka. She took a sip and leaned against the sink. The vodka burned the back of her throat. She hated the taste of it. She stared out the window at nothing and took another sip.
“God, what a mess,” she said, and emptied the glass into the sink. She returned to the dining room to make one last attempt. She would draw up a syllabus, clear and effective, she could at least do that. She worked for an hour, made a cup of tea, then worked for another hour. She read over what she had written. It was good. It was done. She read over her flyer on grading, to be distributed on the first day along with the syllabus. “An ‘A’ paper (1) must have a point to make, a thesis, etc. etc. (2) must engage the interest of a reasonably intelligent and informed reader because it has some importance in itself and because the writer has given it a rich development with, for example, cogent logic, illuminating analogies, etc. etc. (3) must have a clear structure suitable to the etc. etc. (4) The syntax must be sound, the style lively. A ‘B’ paper lacks one or two of these etc. etc.” Preposterous. This, from the woman who had just flunked a course on theory, the woman who had never read Husserl.
Again she went to the kitchen, and this time she measured a single shot of vodka into the glass, added orange juice, and drank it straight down. Then she went to the phone and called the college. There was family illness, she explained to the department secretary, she would need to miss class—often—all during the fall. Could they get a replacement? Just for this quarter? They would try. They thought it likely. Oh good. Oh thank you. Oh thank you very much.
She put away her notes and her offprints and her grade books. She would not be needing them again soon, maybe never. She went upstairs and took a Xanax and put on makeup. Just a little to give herself some color. Then she went down, poured herself a real drink, and picked up the phone.
“Philip?” she said, “I just called to say hi.” She was twisting the phone cord around her hand, a little drunk, and she smiled into the mirror above the phone. “Well?”
“Hi,” he said, and there was the crackle of fear in his voice. “Are you okay? I mean, is everything okay?”
She was silent, angry.
“Maggie? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Oh, well that’s good. How is everything? I mean, you sound …”
She gave him time to go on, but there was only silence on the line, and finally she said, “You can’t do this to me. You can’t do this.”
“What? Do what?”
“You can’t always be suspecting me—you’re suspicious, you’re always spying on me. You think I’ve been drinking, don’t you! Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s what you’re implying. ‘How are you. Are you okay? Are you all right?’ Why don’t you come right out and say it: ‘Have you been drinking?’ God!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just meant … I didn’t mean.”
“Well, don’t do this to me.”
“No, I won’t. I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to go now. I’m having lunch with Beecher.”
“Oh good, that’s good.”
“So if you call, don’t expect me here. I’m out with Beecher.”
“Right.”
“Good-bye, Philip.”
She hung up the phone and continued to look into the mirror. Liar. Cheat. She shook her head. Poor Philip Tate, Goldman Professor of Psychiatry. Poor Maggie Tate, Nothing. Poor everyone.
Maggie went to the Co-op and bought groceries. Fruit and vegetables, some hamburg, chicken breasts, steak. Granola. Spaghetti. Peanut butter. Bread. Was she forgetting anything? She bought stone ground wheat crackers and some Stilton cheese. Milk. Ice cream. She took it home and put it away, in the cupboards, in the fridge, the dutiful wife and mother.
She went to the cleaners and picked up Philip’s shirts. She bought black shoe polish. She bought extra batteries for the alarm clock. She hung up his shirts and she left the shoe polish and the batteries on the kitchen counter.
And she left a note that said, “I’m leaving you. I’ll come back when I can, if I can.”
She went to the liquor store and bought a half-gallon of vodka. She checked into the Ramada Inn. She went to sleep.
* * *
It was late afternoon, about four, when Maggie entered Buck’s Neon Palace and sat at the bar.
Buck nodded to her.
“A scotch,” she said, “a house scotch, on the rocks.”
He looked at her just a second longer than he needed to and she returned his look. He got the drink for her.
After her second drink he just stood there with his arms crossed.
“What do you think?” he said.
Her mind raced. Was this an offer? Was she thinking of taking it? Was she losing her mind?
“About?”
“Anything,” he said. “What’s your sign?”
“I don’t usually do this,” she said. “This sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
She smiled.
“Slumming, you mean?”
“Drinking. In a bar.”
“You usually do it at home?”
“Touché.”
“Another?”
“I’ve still got some. I’m pacing myself.” She looked around the bar, at the pool tables that were empty now and at the little stage near the back. “Who comes here?” she asked.
“People. Drivers, migrants, some Vietnam wrecks in the afternoon, drinkers. It’s a different crowd at night. Some locals just come in for a drink, I’ve got a couple regulars, rich drunks from Beacon Hill who hide out here, folks from Brookline come out sometimes to see how a little lowlife would suit them. You know the kind, they’re not sure the Neon Palace routine is camp or sincere. Lots of people come here. Just people.” He leaned away from her. “Where are you from?”
She didn’t answer.
“More to the point, what are you doing here?”
“Having a drink?” she said.
“I might be tempted to think you’re looking for a little action, except you aren’t the kind of woman who comes in here looking for action.”
“I’m ready for another drink now.”
He poured it and stood there looking at her.
“What do you mean by action?”
“An-y-thing-you-want.” He sang it.
She took a sip of her drink, but when she put it down, her hand shook and some scotch spilled on her fingers and on the bar.
“Here, allow me,” he said, and he took her hand and raised it to the light. He made a tsking sound and folded three fingers into her palm and touched the tip of her index finger with his tongue, quickly, perhaps a joke. She did not take her hand away. He pulled it closer and did it again, looking at her and she looking back, and for a moment everything was quiet, uncertain.
Anything could happen and she would let it. She wanted it to happen.
Then the door opened and two men came in.
She pulled her hand away and looked down at the bar. She tried to speak but her voice would not come. Finally she said, “I’m sorry. I really am,” and she got down from the stool and left. She had forgotten to pay.
It was late in the afternoon and Philip knew he couldn’t call home so he decided to phone Calvin Stubbs just to see how he was doing. Calvin was an old friend and they did not get together often enough and he just thought he’d check in with him. Besides, he might be able to find out if Maggie was okay.
Beecher answered the phone.
“Philip,” she said, “what a delight to hear your voice. I was just saying to Calvin that we never see you anymore, you and Maggie, and we should have a dinner party. The problem is I’m not sure if I remember how to cook anything and I can’t very well serve guests Cracklin’ Oat Bran. But never mind that, how are you, Philip? And how’s Maggie?”
Philip paused, but only for an instant. “I thought you had lunch with Maggie? No? I must have got the day wrong.”
“No. Oh no. But we can take care of that right now. Put her on the phone, and we’ll make a date straightaway.”
“Well, she’s out right now. I thought she might be with you actually.”
“Oh. Well, no.”
“It’s not important, Beecher. I just needed to ask her about … Well, it’s nothing, really, please give my best to Calvin, okay?”
“You bet, Philip, lots of love, bye bye.” She hung up the phone and turned to Calvin and said, “Oh Calvin, things are so bad for the Tates.”
Philip, meanwhile, sat looking straight ahead. He couldn’t call home. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t call around and try to find out where she was. In fact, maybe she was home, still working on her classes for the fall, or maybe she was out photocopying, or maybe she was just taking a nice nap, no drugs and no drinks involved.
But he knew it wasn’t so.
Things had come to a place where there was no going back. He was married to somebody with a major drinking problem. No, let’s say it: he was married to a drunk and she was doing nothing to save herself and only she could save herself. So what use was he, what good was he? He could threaten and cajole and bribe. He could leave her and at least save himself. Get out. Get out of this trap. Be, if there was such a thing, free.
Tears came to his eyes and after a while they began to trickle down his face. He wiped them away. The fact was that he loved her. Her and only her. And all the other lunacy—the drives in the night, the brief and guilt-ridden sex with Dixie Kizer, the rage at Maggie and Cole and Emma—all of it was only a symptom of his hopeless love for this maddening, tortured, self-destructive woman. He wanted to kill her and kill himself. He wanted to lie down with her and die.
And then it came to him that there was only one thing he could do. He must find her and love her, as she was, as she was de
termined to be, just love her. Dying didn’t belong in the equation at all. And if you didn’t know how to love, you could pretend, and if you pretended long enough—who knows?—it might turn into love. “Lie down in the rag-and-boneyard of the heart.” What was that from?
He stopped crying and he sat there, hoping for something, anything, hoping the phone would ring.
At the Ramada Inn Maggie took a long bath and then she poured herself a vodka and Sprite and turned on the television. It was six o’clock, with news on all the major channels, so she flipped through the cable shows until she found an old Joan Crawford movie, black and white, with lots of suffering. After a while she turned off the sound and just watched the pictures. It was very funny, really, but she didn’t feel like laughing.
Philip would have found the note by now.
Maggie got up and took a Halcion and lay on the bed with her eyes closed. Eventually, she figured, she would either sleep or die, it didn’t matter which.
* * *
Philip was about to leave his office when the phone rang. He picked it up at once, without waiting for his secretary to say who was calling. It must be Maggie, it had to be. But it was not.
It was Aspergarter, calling on behalf of the President and the Provost and the Search Committee to tell Philip that he was their unanimous choice for Dean of the Medical School. He paused and waited for Philip’s reaction.
“Oh,” Philip said.
“I presume,” Aspergarter said, “that means you are speechless with pleasure.”
“Yes, of course,” Philip said.
“And that you accept, with gratitude.”
“Yes,” Philip said.
“Well,” Aspergarter said, “you certainly do manage to keep your emotions under control.”
When Philip said nothing, Aspergarter went on to say that Philip’s official appointment as Dean would not take place until the first day of the new year, so he should not expect any public announcement—the newspapers, the television—until January first, but of course he should feel free to tell his friends and relations and his fine, fine family. Then Aspergarter offered his personal congratulations, and assured Philip of his admiration and esteem, and, clearly disappointed, he hung up.
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