The Carpenter's Wife

by G. H. Holmes

  “Bikini?” Romy said. She’d never worn—much less owned—one. But tonight there was something comforting in the air. She might try one on, just to see how it felt. “Let me see…”

  The top had golden clips to be hooked in the front.

  “Here’s the pants.” Gina pulled a red triangle from the stack.

  “Uh… Let me try a suit first.”

  Gina smirked. “Sure; try ‘em all; we’re in no hurry.”

  “Thanks, Gina.” Humble Romy’s eyes were those of a doe.

  “Whatever you’re comfortable in.”

  Romy slid one strap off her shoulder… then the other.

  They were silent. The night seemed to demand it. Trying not to break the spell, they drifted, doing nothing but listen to the pulse of the meadow. Then the cricket stopped, and they both noticed.

  Stark inhaled. The water in the pool was so still that their heads appeared to be planted in a sheet of glass; it seemed impossible that anything was attached below the surface. But of course there was.

  “Don’t know what you said or wrote to her,” Ralph said finally, “but she’s like a changed person this week.”

  Tom’s face didn’t change its expression. He could have gloated; it was too dark for Ralph to see clearly. Instead, he laid back and rested his head on one of the steps of the staircase leading down into the pool, and enjoyed himself. He sighed with contentment. The useful was combining with the pleasant, and presently he floated in the best of worlds.

  Ralph was gazing at the stars. “Maybe it’s just her phase, like you said.” Water sloshed when his hand came up and he casually pointed at the sky. “Too bad the moon’s not visible.”

  His eyes closed, Tom said, “It should be almost full.”

  “See?”

  Tom smiled. “Moon’s the moon, always the same. But if you implemented what we’ve been talking about…”

  “Done that. Just didn’t think that I could change her, you know, with my behavior; and it works like wizardry—if you pardon the expression.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Well, just being friendly-like; and there she stands—when was it, yesterday…?—on the top of the stairs. I’d just come home, kids were out of the house, and she… I mean, she’s actually waiting for me, all attractive-like. I mean… you know.”

  “I dig you,” Tom said.

  “Was great.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Thanks to you.” Ralph spoke from his heart.

  Romy sniggered, looking at herself in Gina’s mirror. She had just closed the clasp of the red bikini in her friend’s presence without feeling the least bit self-conscious. On the contrary, she felt so safe... The closet was soft like a womb and she could be herself in here. Or it was the colors? The colors in here were wonderful.

  And she looked wonderful.

  “It’s too tight,” she said, fingering the straps. “The top, I mean.” She looked down on herself in the mirror—and broke out laughing—immediately catching herself with a dramatic gesture. She slapped her mouth and giggled.

  Gina snickered too.

  Romy could scarcely believe it. She wore the same size pants as Gina—the same size pants!—but was larger around the top, no kidding. Romy snorted. Then she cackled so hard, she had to hold on to the door jamb. The world was shifting shapes tonight.

  Gina probably had no idea what caused this spurt of merriness, and Romy wasn’t telling; not because she was too inhibited—in here she wasn’t—or because Gina wasn’t trustworthy. She was simply too taken up with joy. She played in the same league as Ralph’s wife. Her measurements proved it. The unwonted emotion of attractive supremacy thrilled her and made her to giggle again; Gina got infected and held on to her, and the mirth of one fed that of the other, until they were doubling up, laughing hysterically. She was the same size as Gina. The revelation and its corresponding emotion kept repeating themselves, until their echoes were almost too much to bear.

  “If it’s too tight, just take it off,” Gina said after they’d composed themselves a bit.

  Romy wiped her eyes and cast her a shy glance. “I can’t go down there with no top.”

  “In the city they go like this in broad daylight.”

  “That’s what I heard. Did Tom tell you about that…?”

  Gina narrowed her eyebrows. “No, why?”

  “He was in Munich. Never mind... But I couldn’t—”

  Gina loosened the belt. Her kimono slid off her shoulders and fell to the ground. Her hands reached back and released a snap. “You’re not alone,” she said, proud and almost defiant.

  “But—”

  “And out there it’s dark.”

  Romy giggled. She took hold of the golden clasp on her chest and unhooked it.

  She hesitated.

  Then she hooked it again. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Why not?” Gina wanted to know.

  “It’s not right,” Romy said quietly.

  Gina said nothing, but with nervous hands she closed the clasp of her top too.

  Romy stared at the two bikini-girls in the mirror standing side by side, one white, the other bronzed. Suddenly a kind of electricity coursed through her.

  “Twins,” she said, “feeding among the lilies…” She began to giggle again. “That’s what a guy said, long time ago.”

  “Tom?”

  “Mmmh, not really…”

  “Uh-oh,” Gina said.

  “Could have been him, though.”

  “I imagine him to be too… proper for that.”

  “Puh!” Romy said.

  Seconds later both women shook with laughter. They slapped their thighs and steadied themselves on the wall to prevent from falling down.

  “Wonder where the girls are,” Tom said.

  Just then the terrace door slid open and they stepped through. Romy carried a bowl and Gina a tray with four glasses.

  “There they come,” Ralph said.

  When they pushed through the hedge, Tom saw that both wore kimonos now.

  “Hello, hello,” Gina said.

  “Did you miss us?” Romy asked.

  “Sure,” Tom said. “What’s a starry night without beautiful women?”

  They set bowl and glasses down on the table, and Gina began to pour.

  “What you got?” Tom swam closer.

  “She made some punch before you came,” Ralph said.

  Stark stood up, waded through the shallow, went up the stairs, and got out.

  Gina’s hand with the dipper began to tremble when he came closer. She spilled some of the punch. The dipper slid back into the bulb, and she closed her eyes and put her hand on her heaving chest.

  “You okay?” Tom asked tenderly.

  “Sure, sure…” she said. “I’m fine.”

  Romy flopped down on a lawn chair, leaned back, and gazed into the star-spangled void above. She was positive, she’d never seen a sky like tonight’s. It was as if her eyes were touched by magic—the Milky Way was glittering dust, and for a fleeting moment she was a pixie and sat among the stars.

  The leaves now rustled in the tree tops, whispering romantic secrets; the shrill song of two competing katydids emanated from a bush, and she was sure she sat on a cloud. The hot air hugging the ground formed a cushion, bidding her to sink into it. Calling quietly, it carried the promise to lift her up, to make her drift through halls of air, where she could dream the night away—but not alone…

  Tom…!

  Suddenly her heart was filled with a burning love for her husband. Suddenly she understood. How terrible it was of her to make him wait, to make him beg like a dog, always demanding and never hearing. She felt so sorry for him, it almost broke her heart. Tears stole out of her eyes, and she sobbed quietly. She wanted to tell him that she was enough—she was really enough. From tonight on. If he’d ask her to—

  “Here,” Tom said, holding out a glass of punch. She took it, glasses clinked all around, and everybody drank.
<
br />   “Ooops,” Tom said. “What do I taste?”

  Gina squinted and shook her head. “Nothing in there.”

  But Tom nodded knowingly. “There is.”

  “No rum,” Gina said.

  Maybe he was wrong. He brushed his concerns aside, put the glass down, and slid back into the water.

  It was wonderful…

  Ralph dove in from the edge, head first.

  The splash shook Romy out of her musings and she put her empty glass back on the table. She looked up. The light from the street spilled over the house like glistening fog. It was surrounded by a spray of sparks that were stars; she hadn’t noticed it before. She blinked it all away with heavy lids and closed her eyes. A pleasant lassitude settled in and spread into every corner of her body. It lingered and felt like the sweet exhaustion she experienced shortly before getting up in the morning.

  A fierce pride crept up on her. She’d seen the truth in a closet mirror. She giggled again; the bubbly water tickled her stomach—when in a flash she remembered the testimony of an itinerant minister, whose protruding ears had been so severe that he was nicknamed “Saddle-flaps.” In his early forties he decided to correct the problem, saw a plastic surgeon, and received a tremendous boost of self-esteem as a result.

  She had no need for a plastic surgeon. She sighed. Light had come, at night, in a small room below the Milky Way.

  Now she also understood Tom—why he had married her: he actually saw something in her. Of course! She was rightfully the prettiest girl in Elmendorf. It was about time she owned up to that; she—

  “Aren’t you coming in?” Ralph said. He slid his hands across the surface and squirted water toward the women.

  Romy opened her eyes and noticed that Gina was looking at her. Butterflies began to wobble in her stomach. “Umm…” She sat up.

  “I go if you go,” Gina whispered.

  “Go…?” Romy echoed without thinking.

  “Okay…” Gina got up.

  Romy stood, the stars swirling around her; she had to take a step sideways. Staggering toward the stairs, she reached for the knot in her belt. Gina already stood on the other side of the handrail; her kimono hung open, revealing the bikini under it. Romy’s chin was on her chest as she stared down on that ornery knot. Her hands fought with it—when the pool rushed up to meet her, smacked her face, and she got a mouthful of water. Flailing about, she coughed and wailed.

  Ralph was by her and tried to help her up, but with one stroke Tom was by her side.

  “No, no,” she said, staving them off. “Away. Let me go.” She stood in the shallow, the kimono clinging to her frame.

  “But—”

  “I’m fine.”

  Gina tried to suppress her laughing.

  Romy walked up the stairs, slipped, and fell backwards. She sunk, was gone forever—then her robe appeared and spread on the surface.

  Gina shook with laughter.

  Tom and Ralph exchanged looks.

  Suddenly Romy stood, in bright contrast with the dark water.

  “A bikini?” Tom said. “Where’d that come from?”

  Romy snatched her floating kimono, wadded it into a ball, and hurled it at Gina. It smacked the carpenter’s wife and she got wet.

  “Hey—!”

  Gina shrugged off her own robe and pranced down the stairs into the shallow, where she and Romy began to kick the water into a spray, laughing hilariously. They slipped, pulled one another down, wallowed, and got back up. Then they took each other by the hand and ran up the stairs to the table, where they turned two chairs around to face away from the pool—and the eyes of their men—and flopped down, still snickering.

  Tom looked at Ralph without a smile. “This is becoming a regular midsummer night’s fantasy.”

  “What?”

  “Shakespeare,” Tom said.

  “Uuuh.”

  The carpenter seemed paralyzed. He didn’t know what to do. Neither did Tom. They heard the clinking of glasses again.

  “Leave some for us,” Ralph said.

  “Come and get it,” a female voice answered.

  “You understand this?” Ralph whispered across the water.

  “I’m scared,” Tom replied. “Never seen her like this.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, my Romy.”

  Ralph wiggled his head like an Indian practicing yoga and Tom stifled a laugh. But it was dark; maybe he was imagining things.

  “She’s awesome,” the carpenter said, his eyes glinting like diamonds in the blackness of his wobbling face. “If you don’t mind me saying so.”

  Tom didn’t reply. He got up and sloshed toward the stairs.

  “You can come,” Gina said, “but stay behind us.”

  “Don’t look,” Romy said. Then both giggled.

  “Rom’,” Tom said, approaching the table, “you all right?”

  Romy didn’t answer.

  Her prison house of rules, exploded in the closet, lay shattered around her in the form of baggy pants and beach towels—where was her T-shirt? Anyway. The soaked kimono by the stairs and its belt were chain and ball, but she’d broken free. A bikini was a wonderful thing.

  But the knot had never opened; how’d she get out? She had—

  Didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered.

  She didn’t feel naked, covered only by a handful of triangles; the night air, thick and heavy, lay on her like fabric, the most wonderful gown she’d ever worn. It was sufficient.

  She breathed deeply, sniggered, and got up, spinning around to face her husband. There was a glitter in the air—now it was gone. Her vision narrowed; the universe around Tom’s silhouette seemed couched in gray cotton; it was closing in…

  She breathed again and her eyes cleared up.

  This sense of freedom, the hot breeze, the presence of friends… it all combined into one wonderful, rakish sensation, sending tingles down her spine. She was beautiful; she was…

  “Romy—!” Tom reached out to steady her.

  Gina pulled her feet up onto the seat of her chair and slung her arms around her knees, watching silently.

  “I hereby notify you…” Romy said to Tom, stretching her hand out like Cleopatra.

  “You okay?” Tom said.

  “…that I shall make you happy. My prince.” She suppressed a hiccup, stepped around her chair, and stood in front of him in all her bright-white glory.

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  She laid her arms around his neck and pulled his head toward her mouth. “I’m all yours…” she whispered, when he resisted. She turned him toward the pool. “Come—come in…”

  “Rom’…”

  “I’ll show you something.” She leaned her head back, staggered.

  Gina snorted, covering her mouth.

  Ralph’s gaze never left the tangling pastor and his wife.

  “What do you say, you put your T-shirt on and we go home.” Tom’s fists were balled.

  “You’re a party pooper.” She pouted. “The one day of my life that I’m happy, you want me to go home.”

  Suddenly Ralph was there and reached for Romy’s hand, asking, “You all right?”

  “Sorry, bud,” Tom said hotly. “Let—go.”

  Ralph withdrew his hand.

  Romy swallowed. “No, no.” She stretched out and offered her hand. “Here, Ralph, hold this, as long as you want.” And why not? What was wrong with Ralph holding her hand?

  The carpenter hesitated for a split-second before he reached out again.

  But Tom pushed his arm down. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Ralph stepped aside.

  “And you”—Tom’s index finger lunged toward his wife—“pack up.”

  Romy couldn’t understand why he was so mad.

  “It’s just the four of us,” Ralph pleaded.

  “And if you don’t look somewhere else,” Tom said, “I’ll throw you—” He perceived Gina walking toward him. It was dark, but not dark eno
ugh… A thrill went through the missionary. He blinked.

  “Tom,” she said, standing before him, her eyes eagerly reading his, “don’t be so hard on yourself. This is a wonderful night—”

  “It is—it is,” Romy said.

  “She’s happy.” She took Romy’s hand. “We’ll go swim now, and you can—”

  “Forget it,” Tom said to her, and to his wife, “You put your shirt and pants on and we go.”

  Suddenly the sky caved in on Romy. She began to cry. Tom’s silhouette, indistinct already, became chimerical—and he turned into a wolf. The wolf growled. Gina was a statue beside her but seemed to move left in a circle, base and all—the whole garden moved.

  She noticed Ralph; he spun too—and the pool.

  Spinning Ralph’s gaze was on her. She felt it. His gaze became painful, but he wouldn’t quit; his gaze pierced her—

  A giant fist squeezed her stomach; it began to pump, taking her by surprise. It was an alien organism in her belly.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she said. She let go of Gina’s hand, staggered toward the water, and began to heave.

  “Get her away from there!” Gina said. “I don’t want her by the pool.”

  Ralph stepped up to Romy, who doubled over, coughing. He put one hand on her back. “Come here…”

  He saw Tom’s stone-face. An instant later Ralph lost his balance; his arms rowing, he sailed backwards through the air above the pool—and plunged in, head first.

  Romy had fallen into a bush, where she lay retching. She sat up and turned around to see Tom walk slowly toward Gina.

  “Come here,” she heard him growl.

  Gina stood transfixed, her eyes on Stark, gnawing on her fists.

  He lunged out and caught her arm. She shrieked, bringing up her hands in front of her face. Writhing, she tried to break away, but he took hold of her other arm, too, and locked her in a vise—and shook her.

  “What’d you think you were doing?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t do anything!”

  Then he lifted her up as if she were a puppet, and tossed her toward her husband in the pool.

  Ralph ducked when she came flying and splashed down beside him.