“You sure?” Stacy said.
“Positive.”
“If you’re sure.” Stacy removed her apron.
Sam readjusted the parchment paper and began a new row— all concentration, hoping to avoid Stacy’s end-of-the-day ritual—but there was to be no escape. Her assistant crossed to the extra chair by Sam’s workstation and plunked down.
“I’ll go first,” Stacy said. “You,” she said, as she always did. “I am grateful for you.”
Sam scratched a suddenly itchy arm. Her face reddened at the compliment.
“Okay,” Stacy said. “Your turn.”
“Is this necessary?”
“Absolutely.” A therapist had told Stacy, after her second divorce, to take time every day to list all the things she was grateful for. He’d told her to adopt an attitude of gratitude. Sam could just imagine the therapist’s syrupy tone. Adopt an attitude of gratitude.
Stacy had told her that this practice had gotten her through some rough times, although there had been days when she had to scrabble to think of even one item for her list. She said she had come to believe that gratitude held a transformative power. Stacy believed in gratitude just as deeply as she did in the idea that Mercury in retrograde caused machines to malfunction and tires to go flat.
“You want abundance in your life, don’t you?” she said to Sam. “Gratitude is the key to abundance.”
“I’m grateful, okay?”
“Then let’s hear your list.”
Sam rolled her eyes.
“And be specific. It’s important to be specific.”
“Okay,” Sam began. “I’m grateful I don’t have to clean toilets for a living.”
In spite of herself, Stacy laughed.
Sam began another shell. “I’m grateful I never married a man who wore a toupee. Or a ponytail.” Now she was warming up. “Let’s see. I’m grateful I have my own teeth, that I don’t have warts, and that my kids didn’t die in the Johnstown flood.”
“You don’t have kids,” Stacy said.
“Another thing to be grateful for,” Sam said. Not true. A too easy flippancy. In truth, she did want kids—someday. And there were many things for which she was thankful. But she would sooner have died than articulate them to her assistant. Okay, it was superstitious, but Sam was afraid that if she acknowledged her blessings aloud, it would attract the attention of the gods or fate or whatever/whoever was out there and, in a flash, all would be repossessed. If she had learned anything from her life’s experience it was that the things you most loved could be taken away in the space of a breath and that there was nothing as fragile as happiness. Not the wings of the moths fluttering against the window. Not the thinnest, most delicate thread of spun sugar.
Here is what Sam was truly grateful for: Lee.
Last night, lying in his arms, she had looked at him and said, “You know that song from The Sound of Music?”
He laughed. “The Sound of Music? You’re kidding me.”
“The solo Maria sings,” she persisted. “In the gazebo.”
“I guess I missed out on that part of my musical education.” He stroked her hips, his fingers strong, slightly calloused. Sailor’s hands.
She jabbed his ribs. “You should talk. The Doobie Brothers? Fog-hat?”
“I have yet to sink to Broadway shows.” He had no shame about his musical taste.
She straightened up and her auburn hair, unpinned, spilled over her shoulders. Too self-conscious to sing in her off-key voice, she spoke the lyrics: “ ‘So somewhere in my wicked, miserable past . . . I must have done something good.’ ”
He pulled her down onto him. “ ‘Your wicked, miserable past’?”
“That’s how you make me feel,” she said. “Like here you are in my life, in spite of everything.”
“So is this when I get to hear about your illicit history?” he said. “Murder? Embezzlement? Bank robbery with an Uzi?” He truly believed there was nothing she could ever have done he couldn’t forgive. If she had been Lizzie Borden incarnate, he probably would have offered to wash the blood from the axe.
The phone rang again and Stacy headed for it.
“Let it go,” Sam said.
“You sure?”
“It’s after five. Officially, we’re closed. Let the machine pick up.”
They listened to the lilting, opening notes—Debussy—and then her voice: “Golliwog’s Cakewalk. We are unable to come to the phone right now. Leave your name, your number, and a message, and we will return your call.” Stacy had wanted Mendelssohn in the background. Or Pachelbel’s Canon. She had also tried to persuade Sam to rename the business. She said “Golliwog’s” made it sound like the name of a place that sold tropical fish. When Sam explained about its being the title of the Debussy piece, Stacy said that even with the music for a hint, ninety percent of the customers wouldn’t get it. She thought Sam should choose something with some pizzazz. “Flour Power” would be good.
There was a click, then the signaling tone, then nothing, as if the caller had hung up, and then, after a pause: “Sam?” The voice was hesitant, soft. “Sam, are you there?”
Sam caught her breath.
“It’s Libby. I need to talk to you. It’s important.” There was another long, humming pause.
Sam froze.
“Will you call me?” the voice continued. Then, so soft Sam could barely hear the word: “Please.”
The coincidence of it absolutely leveled Sam, as if by thinking of Libby minutes before she had somehow created this contact, willed it, conjured her sister up by the power of memory. She set the pastry tube aside, saw Stacy look at her hands, saw them tremble.
She is six, Libby eight. In the background, someone is playing the piano.
“Who was that?” Stacy asked.
The piano plays on, slightly out of tune. The tune is lilting, hypnotic. “Tea for Two.”
“Nobody,” Sam said. “Nobody at all.”
Libby
Libby had never been good at waiting. Give her an answer, don’t just leave her hanging out to dry in a limbo of unknowing. She stared at the phone, as if by will alone she could compel it to ring. For two days now, she hadn’t been more than five feet from it, had even carted the cordless into the bathroom while she stood at the sink and gave herself an awkward, unsatisfactory sponge bath. (Because of the subclavical catheter and the attendant danger of infection, showers were forbidden.) The silence of the phone mocked her and she felt, beneath her impatience, buried beneath guilt, the mounting heat of resentment. Typical of Sam not to call back. Typically selfish. Libby should have known better than even to have tried that avenue. She transferred her anger to a spot of tarnish on the lip of the silver creamer. It was the second Wednesday of the month, the day set aside for polishing the silver. Spread out on the table was an array of antique napkin rings, her mother’s tea service, eight ornate candle-holders of various heights, and flatware—service for twelve.
Even now she clung to her household schedule. Over the past months, it had kept her steady, providing a compass for uncharted waters. Bed linens and laundry on Mondays. Dusting and vacuuming on Tuesdays. Wednesdays, depending on the week in the month, were for ironing, mending, cabinets to be straightened, or the silver. Grocery shopping and errands on Thursdays. Fridays were for appointments and the odd tasks that were always arising. Richard used to encourage her to hire help. With his trust fund, they could certainly afford it, but she had never liked the idea of a stranger poking through her life, nosing about in her cupboards, handling her things. The twins teased her about her cleaning routine—she once overheard them call her Anal Avis—but they were quick enough to make use of the clean clothes and meals that resulted from her organization and work.
She screwed the cap on the can of polish, snapped off the rubber gloves and replaced them on the shelf beneath the sink. It took three trips to return the silver to the dining room sideboard. Usually the gleaming surfaces brought her a measure of satisfaction, but
today she was too aware of the silent phone to take pleasure in completed tasks. She knew that tonight Richard would urge her to phone Sam again, but there was little or no chance of that. It had taken every ounce of courage to call once; she hadn’t the reserves to try again.
She checked the clock. Eleven forty-five. On Wednesdays, Richard’s class ended at eleven thirty. It took him five minutes to gather the students’ papers, another ten to drive from the campus to their door. He would be pulling into the drive any minute. A year ago, he might have stayed on campus, using the free time to grade papers or meet with one of his advisees, but not now. There is no need to come home, she’d told him. I want to, he’d said. Over the past month on these Wednesdays they had gone out to lunch or taken a walk. Once he suggested they go upstairs for a nap. She refused. She couldn’t imagine he really wanted to make love to her. She could barely stand looking at herself in the mirror, seeing the disfiguring catheter that jutted from her chest. No, she certainly wasn’t interested in going upstairs for a nap.
“A nap” was Richard’s euphemism for sex. Just turned forty-three and he was still shy about making love. Even now, married twenty years, he would kiss her in public only under protest and would only really let loose after three or four drinks. When they were young she had found his shyness endearing. In fact, it had been one of the things that attracted her to him. That and his music.
They had met during Thanksgiving break at Oberlin. The campus was nearly empty that weekend, but Libby stayed on, since there was no sense in making the long drive back to Massachusetts for the four-day break. She passed the time sleeping and studying or in one of the practice rooms with her flute. Her playing was passable—she didn’t delude herself into thinking otherwise—but it relaxed her and swept her head free of troubles and concerns. A mind vacuum, she called it. That Saturday afternoon, as she was heading for the practice room, flute case tucked under her arm, she heard music from one of the other rooms. A cello.
Her steps slowed, stopped. The cellist was good, the playing confident. There were no mistakes or hesitations, no tirelessly repeated passages. Something stirred, vibrated deep in her belly, the yearning, the ache that the bowing of strings always aroused in her. She leaned against the wall. She had no idea how long she stayed like that—long enough that at some point she slid down the wall, sat on the floor. She closed her eyes and drank it in. Chopin’s Polonaise Brillante. Tears pooled behind her lids, slid down her cheeks. She remained there even after the last notes were no more than an echo. A passage of Chopin—just that—but it set in motion a meeting that changed her life.
“Are you okay?”
He was tall—over six feet, she guessed—and older, possibly a professor, with craggy good looks. He wore pleated pants, a crewneck sweater in a green that set off the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, and a sports jacket. His voice was gentle, filled with concern.
“Yes,” she said, mortified to be seen like that, crumpled on the floor, weeping like a child. With guys her own age she was confident, intimidating even—there were guys she had leveled with one look— but not with him, not from the beginning. She scrambled to stand, swiped at her cheeks. “Really, I’m fine. It’s the music.”
He reached out, helped her to her feet. “Is it that bad?”
She flushed, started to protest, then saw he had been teasing.
“I’m Richard Barnett.”
“Elizabeth,” she said. “Libby.”
“Nice to meet you, Elizabeth Libby.”
“Just Libby,” she said. “Libby Lewis.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” he said.
God help her, she nearly curtseyed.
Over coffee, she learned he was a grad student from Shaker Heights. She told him that she was from Massachusetts and that she was, or hoped to be, a poet. Later, he walked her back to her dorm, asked if he might read her poetry sometime. Another week passed before he tried to kiss her.
Back then, tired of too-persistent males who were always trying to get her into bed, she had welcomed his sexual reticence, but as the years passed she had found it less appealing. Teenagers walked around joined at the lip, practically doing it parked in the school lot, in daylight, for heaven’s sake—once she saw a car actually bouncing—but he acted like kissing her in a restaurant was cause for arrest. PDA, he called it. Public display of affection. As if she wanted him to lay her out on the table rather than share a kiss, perform a small act of tenderness. When she allowed herself to think about it, she could almost appreciate the irony. Well, there were ways she had disappointed him, too. Twenty years built up lots of tarnish in a marriage, and it was not always possible to buff it away.
She checked the time again—eleven forty-eight—and listened for the car, but found herself hoping Richard had stayed in his office. Lately his solicitousness had been driving her mad. The way he jumped up to get her tea before the water had come to a full boil, or massaged her legs while she read in the evenings—something he hadn’t done since she was pregnant with the twins. Or the tone of his voice when he asked how she was doing, the timbre hushed, like the tone you’d use at a concert or in church. Or the way he studied her when he thought she didn’t notice, averting his eyes when she caught him. It made her want to scream, just hurl words across the room at him. What the hell are you staring at? You want to know how I’m doing? Well, why don’t you just get up and pull a blood sample, check my urine? Sometimes the words nearly escaped, but she managed to hold them back. Richard didn’t understand that caring too much could be a fault, could feel smothering.
The thought of his concern closed in and Libby wanted to bolt. She scrawled a quick note and pinned it to the message board, knowing he would be hurt when he saw it. Once that would have stopped her, but now she gathered her shoulder bag, car keys, jacket. She was nearly through the door when the phone rang. Although she had been waiting for a call, hoping for it, now she was unprepared. She let it ring again and again as she steeled herself to lift the receiver. The words she had carefully rehearsed faded. Her mouth turned dry, ashy, and she had to swallow twice before she managed a simple hello.
“Hey, Mrs. Barnett.” Her heartbeat calmed, returned to its normal rhythm. It was not Sam. “It’s Patrick. Patrick Cooper.” Patrick the Prick, she thought. “I’ve been trying to reach Matt. Leaving messages at his dorm. I was wondering if he’s coming home this weekend.”
She made her voice careful, neutral. “I don’t think so, Patrick. As far as I know he doesn’t plan on flying back until Thanksgiving.”
She checked the clock. Ten to. “I’ll tell him you called,” she said before she hung up, although she wouldn’t. She didn’t like Patrick. She could never see him without remembering the afternoon years before. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but her bedroom door had been ajar and the boys’ voices reverberated, vibrant with testosterone. (Honestly, sometimes she thought a girl could get pregnant just walking by a teenage male.) “So where’s your mother?” Patrick had asked. “Off with the other hockey sticks?” “What?” Matt said. “You know, the hockey sticks. My mother and the others. I mean, isn’t that what they look like? Skinny as sticks and dressed all in beige.” Libby waited for Matt to say something—defend her—but he laughed. “The hockey sticks,” he said. “That’s a hoot.”
She had wanted to march down the stairs and slap Patrick, slap Matthew, too. Would they be happier if mothers all went around letting themselves go? Getting fat? They didn’t have any idea how hard it was. Pilates. Yoga. Jogging. Free weights. And the vigilance. Training yourself to eat half what you’d ordered, watching every mouthful you swallowed, not even remembering the last time you had a piece of chocolate. Counting calories or grams of fat, or points, depending on which weight-loss system you were using at the moment. Did that little prick think it was fun to spend most of the time hungry while you lived with the tyranny of the scale and mirror? In that she had been luckier than most, a size 8 her entire adult life, just as she had been in high school. A perfect
8, according to saleswomen, as if perfection could be found in a dress size. No breast reduction for her like Suzanne Mason, or lipo’ed stomach like June Duncan, who maintained you could do sit-ups from now to the next millennium but it wouldn’t repair the damage of having kids. Well, Patrick would be happy now. With her puffy face and swollen legs, she looked like anything but a hockey stick. A marshmallow was the more apt simile.
She heard Richard’s car pull into the drive. Too late for an easy escape.
He came in, closed the kitchen door quietly behind him, as if the least noise might trip an alarm. He set his briefcase and the newspaper on the counter, then crossed to her and kissed her cheek. His smile was tentative, his eyes were watchful, gauging her mood. He was getting a little paunch, and the flesh beneath his eyes was puffy—his fall allergies—but he was still handsome in a Michael Caine kind of way, still good-looking enough to be the center of at least one or two coeds’ fantasies. At the annual autumn mixer, Libby could pick them out by the way they fluttered around him, smooth-skinned and smiling, bodies ripe as pear flesh. Suddenly she wondered if right now on the Brown campus Mercedes was performing a similar dance around some middle-aged professor. She hoped their daughter was smarter than that, but of course lust, or whatever it was these girls were experiencing, had less to do with intelligence than with the dangerous and heady temptations of first independence and, on another level, of exploring the cruel power granted by youth alone. Richard was not totally unaware. He reassured Libby that he kept his office door open whenever one of them dropped by. Of course, if they provoked fantasies on his part, he would never confess it. She had a momentary flash, a quick and painful memory of a time and betrayal she never managed to erase from recall.
Richard noted her jacket, her pocketbook. “Going out?” he asked. His face was neutral but she knew him well enough to catch the flicker of hurt. For a moment she softened. He was only trying to negotiate the slippery terrain their life had become. She knew he wished she would handle this whole thing differently, knew that he wanted to be partners in this. She couldn’t allow that, because he wasn’t a partner. Not in this. He reminded her of the young men who announced “We’re pregnant” when their wives were expecting. No, she always wanted to tell them. You are not pregnant. Your wife is. At least Richard hadn’t tried to usurp that. In fact, when she went into heavy labor with the twins, he had fainted. Well, not exactly fainted but turned so white Dr. Glass insisted he leave the delivery room.
The Law of Bound Hearts Page 2