Sea Lovers

by Valerie Martin

  He went to the portfolio, opened it, lifted the first print. Again the odd feeling of vertigo seized him as he looked down upon the teeming world of branches and vines. He could almost hear the dull buzz of insect life, breathe the oxygen-laden air. “These are terrific,” he said aloud. No wonder she had been so absorbed, so distracted, so uninterested in the daily course of her life. He felt a little stab of jealousy. His own work did not claim him; he had to drag himself to it. But that feeling passed quickly. He sat down on her cot, flushing with excitement, imagining how the room would look filled with his wife’s strange vision. He heard her key in the door, her footsteps in the hall, then she was standing in the doorway looking in at him.

  “What are you doing in here?” she said, just an edge of territorial challenge in her tone.

  “I was looking at the new work,” he said.

  She leaned against the doorframe, pushed her hair off her forehead. She’d had a few drinks at lunch, celebrating. “Well, what do you think?” she said.

  “I think it’s just amazing,” he said. “It’s so good I had to sit down here and mull it over.”

  She sagged a little more in the doorway, smiling now but anxious. “Do you really think so? I’ve been almost afraid for you to see it.”

  “Oh, my dear,” he said.

  Tears filled her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of one hand. “I’m so happy,” she said. She came into the room and sat beside him, still wiping away tears. “These stupid tears,” she said impatiently.

  Evan put his arm around her, muttered into her shoulder, “I’m so proud of you.” There they sat for some time, contented, holding on to each other as if they were actually in the forest of her dreams.

  There was always a letdown after she’d finished a block of work, Evan told himself in the difficult days that followed. She was petulant and weepy, angry with the gallery owner, who had been her friend and supporter for years, complaining about every detail of the installation. She hardly slept at night, though what she did in her studio Evan couldn’t figure out. She wasn’t working, and she hadn’t, as she usually did between showings, cleaned the place up. But night after night he woke just long enough to watch her get up, pull on her robe, and go out, then he saw the light from her studio. During the day she lay about the apartment, napping or reading, getting nothing done and snapping at him if he so much as suggested a trip to the grocery. He tried to ignore her, spent his days struggling with his article, which resisted his efforts so stubbornly he sometimes sat at his desk for hours, literally pulling at what he called the remains of his hair. Finally he began to have trouble sleeping too. He lay on his back in the darkness, unable to move or to rest, while panic gripped his heart. When he did sleep, he had strange, unsettling dreams in which he was lost, pursued by something terrifying, powerful, something silent and brooding, something with wings.

  One night, waking in terror from such a dream, he found himself, as he often did, alone in the bed. Once his heart slowed down and strength returned to his legs, he resolved to get up. His throat was parched; he felt dehydrated, as if he had been wandering in a desert. Pursued by what? he thought as he sat up and fumbled around for his slippers. Some desert creature? A creature with claws and wings and the face of a woman who would pose some unanswerable riddle before tearing him to bits? The idea amused him as he stumbled to the kitchen and switched on the lights, which made him recoil so violently he switched them back off. He poured himself a glass of water and stood, still sleep-shocked, gazing out the kitchen window at the back of the building across the alley. Above it he could see the milky luminescence of the half-moon. He finished his water, feeling quiet now, and friendly. The light from Gina’s studio made a pool across the kitchen floor. He put his glass in the sink and followed this light to her room. The double doors had glass insets, but the glass was mottled so as not to be transparent. They were closed, but not tightly—in fact, one stood free of the latch and could be opened noiselessly with a push. He didn’t want to startle her, but if she was asleep he didn’t want to wake her, either. “Gina?” he said softly once, then again. Carefully he pushed the door open a few inches. He could see the cot from where he was; she wasn’t in it. He opened the door a little further, then all the way. The window stood open, the room was bright and cold; Gina was not in it.

  It took him a moment to apprehend this information. He looked around anxiously, as if he could make her materialize by his determination to find her there. He went to the living room; perhaps she was sleeping on the couch. He looked in the bathroom and then the bedroom, though of course he knew she was not there. He glanced at the clock, 3:00 a.m. He went back to the studio.

  What did it mean? How often in the past months when he had believed her to be here in this room had she been…wherever she was? His heart ached in his chest; he laid his hand upon it. She had a lover, there could be no doubt of it. That was why she was so tired all the time, why she slept all day, and why she was so cold and bitter.

  Evan switched off the light and went to sit on the couch in the living room in the dark. He would wait for her; they would have it out. His rival was probably much younger than he was. When women Gina’s age could, they often did. He thought of Colette and George Eliot. He would be a young man impressed by her because she was an artist and he was, surely, a nothing, a boy in need of a mother. It went like that; there were countless such stories. The minutes ticked by. He waited in a fog of anxiety and weariness. He wasn’t up to the scene to come. Perhaps he should get back in bed and pretend he didn’t know. Maybe then the affair would run its course, she would tire of the young man, or he of her, and things would get back to normal.

  He was awakened by a clatter coming from Gina’s studio. It sounded like someone was smashing china. He leaped to his feet, crossed the narrow hall, and threw open the doors. The early-morning light was soft and pale, bathing the scene before him in a wash of pink and gray. Gina was on her hands and knees on the floor just inside the window. Next to her was a broken plate. A few crusts had flown from it and landed near her foot. One was lodged in the cuff of her pants.

  “What on earth are you doing?” he cried.

  She sat up, rubbing her ankle, picking out the bit of bread. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she said crossly. “I’m trying to get up off the floor.”

  “But where have you been? You weren’t here.”

  She lifted her head toward the window. “I was on the fire escape.”

  She couldn’t have come in the door, Evan reasoned. She would have had to walk through the living room, and he would have seen her. “What were you doing out there?” he complained. “Didn’t you hear me call you?”

  “No,” she said. “I guess I fell asleep.” She got to her feet, brushing herself off. Evan pushed past her and stuck his head out the window. “How could you sleep out here?” he called back to her. In the summer she kept plants on the landing, herbs and geraniums, and on hot nights she sometimes took a cushion and sat among the pots. But now there was nothing but the cold metal, the cold air, and the cold stars fading overhead in a pale sky. The stairs led down to a narrow alleyway, which opened into a school parking lot that was fenced and locked at night. She couldn’t have gone down there. His eye was caught by something on the landing below. It was a long brown feather with a black bar across it. He turned from the window to his wife, who was sitting on the cot, her head in her hands.

  “You don’t expect me to believe that,” he said.

  She raised her head and gave him a brief, weary inspection, as if she were looking at an annoying insect. “I don’t care what you believe,” she said.

  “Gina, what’s happening to you?” he exclaimed. “You disappear in the middle of the night, you tell me an absurd lie nobody would believe, and then you give me your too-tired-to-care routine.”

  “I’m not tired,” she said. “I just don’t care.”

  “We can’t go on like this,” he said, in despair.

  “I
know it,” she said.

  But they did go on. What else, Evan thought, could they do? He accepted her story, partly because he couldn’t come up with an alternative scenario—she had been coming in through the window, and the fire escape, as she pointed out, led nowhere—and partly because it didn’t seem to matter. He didn’t think she was having an affair, because she didn’t act like someone who was in love; she was neither defensive nor elated, and she seemed completely uninterested in her own body. What he had often thought of as a brooding sensuality now became just brooding. He continued his struggle with his article, Gina battled it out with her gallery, and finally they were both finished and both were moderately successful. They had a little time to rest, to cast about for new projects. Usually when this happened they gave themselves over to the pleasure of having no deadlines, sleeping late, eating at odd hours, gorging on videos, food, and sex. But this time it was different. Gina was still sleeping very little at night, and she seemed so uninterested in sex that Evan made a resolution that he would not initiate it. In the past, he thought gloomily, he had never paid much attention to who started it. Now he was self-consciously aware that it was always him. She rejected him without speaking, with a shrug, or by walking away. And if she did accept his overtures, she hurried him along, as if she didn’t really have the time and her mind was somewhere else. He grew sick of trying and sick of waiting. Winter was dragging on; the weather was rotten, cold and rainy.

  Evan was drinking too much, and for the first time in his life he began to put on weight. One Sunday when the sun was shining for a change and there was a hint of warmth in the air, he ran into a neighbor at the farmers’ market. During their conversation Evan jokingly mentioned the latter problem; the drinking was a secret he was keeping even from himself.

  “It happens to the best of us,” his neighbor said. “Especially at our age. I’ve joined a gym; it’s not far from here. It’s made a big difference in how I feel.”

  Evan had to admit that his neighbor looked fit and energetic. “Give me a call,” the neighbor concluded. “I go two or three times a week. I’ll take you over and show you around. Bring Gina, if she’s interested.”

  But of course she wasn’t interested. “It’s ridiculous,” she said, throwing one magazine on the floor and taking up another. “I’m not going to spend my time running on a treadmill like a laboratory rat.”

  So Evan went alone. He met his friend at the reception desk and received a pass, then a tour of the facility. He was impressed with the size of the place, the up-to-date equipment, swimming pool, racquetball courts—he hadn’t played in years, but he remembered enjoying the game. There was even a juice and salad bar. It was in this bar, as he was leaving, that he found Vicky and her husband, who waved him over to their table with soft cries of enthusiasm and surprise. As he walked to join them, Evan experienced a mild pang of discomfort; he hadn’t seen either of them since Gina had behaved so rudely at the party. But Vicky seemed not to remember, or not to care. Her hand pressed his warmly in greeting and she patted the chair next to her, inviting him to sit.

  “So you’re thinking of joining up?” her husband, Victor, inquired.

  Evan smiled at him and nodded, looking around the pleasant, busy room. He was thinking, as he always did when he saw them together, Vicky and Victor, such silly names. “It’s much bigger than I thought it would be,” he said.

  Vicky drained her carrot juice. “We’ve been coming for a year now. It’s a lifesaver.”

  “You look great,” Evan said. She really did. She was wearing a sleeveless scoop-neck leotard and leggings, so he could see exactly how good she looked. There was just a hint of cleavage visible at the neckline, enough to show that her breasts were still firm, not sallow-looking or wrinkled. Her arms looked firm and strong too, though the thick cords and darkened skin on the backs of her hands gave some hint of her age. She had a scarf tied around her waist—not the best idea, Evan thought, because it called attention to the small but distinctly round belly just below. He couldn’t see her hips. She pushed her hair back from her face, giving Evan a quick, complex look made up in parts of gratitude, flirtation, and suspicion. “Thanks,” she said. “I feel great.”

  Victor patted her shoulder proprietarily. “She’s fantastic,” he said. Vicky laughed, childishly pleased to be the object of her husband’s praise. Evan looked down at himself with fake dismay. “I’ll need a lot of work,” he said. “It may be too late for me.”

  “Never too late,” Victor assured him. “You’re as young as you feel.”

  Evan wished they could talk about something else, but there was no way to change the subject. This was a gym, after all. The subject was bodies. Victor told Evan about his routine. He liked the stair-step machine; Vicky preferred the treadmill. The aerobics classes were excellent. Vicky even did yoga. The free-weights room was sometimes a little crowded; the young jocks did not always leave the racks in perfect order, that was the only drawback. At last there was a lull long enough for Evan to make an excuse. He had to get back to work, he said. As always, he had a deadline.

  “Time for us to hit the showers,” Victor said, getting up. He popped Vicky playfully across the shoulders with his towel. “Great to see you,” he said, grasping Evan’s hand. “Give Gina our best.”

  Evan noted the brief flash of distress that crossed Vicky’s face at the mention of his wife. She remembers perfectly well, he thought. She’s just being nice about it. Then he was angry at Gina all over again. What right had she to criticize this nice woman because she cared enough about her appearance to have her face lifted? What was wrong with staying fit and wanting to look good for each other, as Vicky and Victor obviously did?

  Evan left the gym with a printed sheet of membership privileges and prices gripped tightly in his hand. Filled with resolution and optimism, he stopped in the chilly parking lot to look it over. This was a good thing to do, he told himself. He wanted to be like Vicky and Victor. Gina would ridicule him, but he didn’t care. He wanted to feel good about himself, he wanted to change his life. Carefully he folded his informational paper and put it deep in his coat pocket.

  That night Gina was particularly restless and distracted. Evan made pasta and a salad for dinner, but she hardly touched it. She complained that her neck and shoulders were stiff, shrugging repeatedly, trying to loosen up the muscles. Evan told her about the gym, expecting a tirade, or simply a dismissive remark, but to his surprise she listened attentively. In fact, as he explained why he thought it would be a good investment for him, how he feared that his sedentary ways resulted in fatigue and depression, she seemed to focus on him with a distant but sincere interest. “It can’t be good for you to be closed up in here with me all the time,” she said.

  “It’s not that,” he protested.

  She said nothing. Evan chewed a piece of lettuce. He could feel her eyes on his face. At last he looked up at her, expecting to find contempt, or anger, or indifference, but she was studying him with a look of complete sympathy, devoid of pity or self-interest, as if, he thought, she were looking right into his soul and finding it blameless, but also infinitely sad. He felt a hot flush rising to his cheeks, and he looked away, at his fork resting among the salad greens, at his half-full glass of wine.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” she said.

  They sat together on the couch watching a video. It was a complicated story of intrigue on a Greek island. Evan had chosen it because the cover showed a man standing in front of a white building set against a sky so blue and so clearly warm he wished he was in the picture. The scenery in the film was terrific; the television screen seemed to pour warmth and color into their drab living room. When it was over Evan talked a little about how much he wanted to travel, to go to Greece again, and also to Italy and Spain, warm, sunny countries where the people were relaxed and friendly and the food was fresh, healthful, and prepared with care and enthusiasm. Now that their son was grown they could think about going off-season, when there were no tour
ists. Gina listened, inserting qualifiers here and there—the food in Spain was notoriously filthy, the Italians were far from relaxed—but she seemed more amused than irritated by his aimless fantasies. “You’re full of desires today,” she said.

  “It’s true,” he admitted. “I am.” He rubbed his hand along her thigh, nuzzled his face against her shoulder. She neither responded nor pushed him away. He brought his hand up to her breast, took her earlobe gently between his teeth. “Please don’t,” she said softly.

  He dropped back on the couch, letting out a sigh of frustration.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, getting up.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  She went into her studio and began gathering up dishes, wadding up pieces of paper. She left the doors open and Evan could see her from where he sat. She went into the kitchen carrying plates, came back with a garbage bag. Evan looked at the clock; it was after midnight. A great time for a little light cleaning, he thought. “A little night cleaning,” he called to her.

  “I can’t stand it anymore,” she said, amiably.

  “Me neither,” Evan said, but softly, to himself. She didn’t hear it. After a few minutes he realized he was falling asleep. He got up, pulling off his clothes as he went to bed.

  The dream ended, as he had known it must, with his missing the plane. Evan woke feeling breathless. He had been running, but they kept the planes across a busy six-lane highway from the check-in. There was a fence too, he recalled, chain-link, tall, over six feet. He rolled onto his side and looked at the clock. It was 5:00 a.m. Gina had still not come to bed. He sat up, rubbing his head, disoriented and strangely apprehensive. After a few moments he got up and made his way to the kitchen. While he stood at the sink drinking water, it dawned on him that the lights in Gina’s studio were off. She must have decided to sleep in there. Usually when he found her asleep, the lights were on, the book she had been reading had slipped to the floor or lay, still open, beneath her hand. He stepped out into the hall.