Good Intentions

by Joy Fielding

  “Why not?”

  “I’m just trying to be realistic, honey. How many things can one person do and do well? You’re already overloaded.” He looked from Renee to the clock beside their bed and back again. “You don’t have time to take a shower, for Pete’s sake. When are you going to find time to have a baby?”

  “I’d make time.”

  “As much time as you make for Debbie?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No, what’s not fair would be bringing another child into this already overcrowded world when you’re not fully prepared to look after it properly. I don’t want some housekeeper who doesn’t even speak English bringing up my child.”

  “Philip, lots of women work and have children.”

  “You’re not lots of women. You’re you. And right now the most important thing in your life is your career.” He laughed. “I almost have to make an appointment to make love to my wife.”

  “I’d slow things down.”

  Philip walked over to her side of the bed and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You can’t slow down. Your mind is totally focused on your work. Even when we were making love, you were worried about what time it was. Weren’t you? Don’t try to tell me otherwise. I always know what you’re feeling.” He gave her a look of bemused resignation. “I’d love some bacon and eggs for breakfast,” he said on his way to the bathroom.

  Renee sat for a few minutes on the side of the bed, then reached over and lifted the phone from its carriage. She dialed quickly, ignoring the fact her hands were shaking. “Hi, Dan. It’s Renee. I won’t be able to make the meeting. I haven’t been feeling so hot this morning. No, I think it was just something I ate. I’ll try to be in by nine o’clock. Thanks. I’m really sorry.”

  Renee replaced the receiver and approached her image in the mirror. “Oh God,” she said, shuddering at the sight of her naked body. “How can he bear to look at you?” She turned, focusing on the pink welt that cut across her left buttock.

  Philip had lately taken to punctuating their lovemaking with two sharp slaps to her backside. It had started several months ago, maybe longer, she thought now, trying to recall the exact occasion. She remembered them coming home from a party one night and making love in pretty much the usual way, when Philip had suddenly flipped her over onto her stomach and slapped her twice, hard, across the buttocks. The first slap had been like a rebuke—stinging, fast, sharp. The second had been more pronounced. It stayed, left a mark.

  Renee studied the fading streak of color slashed across her pale flesh, realizing that this was a habit she didn’t think she liked. Still, she hesitated about mentioning it to Philip. He might accuse her of being uninventive, of not wanting to try new things. Renee dropped her gaze to the floor, careful not to look back in the mirror.

  She found her nightgown in the middle of the mess of bedsheets, pushed it over her head and retrieved her terrycloth white robe—the same new white Pratesi robe of her dream—from the closet, pushing her arms through its sleeves, hearing Philip singing in the shower as she walked past the bathroom door.

  Debbie was in the kitchen, standing by the sink and drinking a glass of orange juice.

  Renee took a deep breath. “You’re up early.”

  “You’re late,” Debbie answered, looking at her strangely. “Love your hair.”

  Renee blushed and turned away, smoothing her hair behind her ears self-consciously.

  “Kathryn still asleep?”

  “She usually sleeps till around ten.”

  Renee reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs and a package of bacon.

  “They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Debbie said, not even trying to keep the disdain from her voice.

  “It’s for your father.”

  Debbie nodded, saying nothing while Renee arranged the bacon in the frying pan.

  “I want to thank you for being so sweet to Kathryn all week,” Renee told Debbie, surprised she could legitimately apply the word “sweet” to her stepdaughter. “I think it’s been good for her, having somebody around.”

  Debbie shrugged. “You don’t have to thank me. I like her.”

  “Well, it was nice of you to take the time …”

  “Somebody should,” Debbie said pointedly. Renee wondered if the girl and her father had been communicating in their sleep.

  “Something smells nice in here,” Philip said a few minutes later, stopping in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “It’s all ready,” Renee told him, holding up the plate for his approval.

  “Looks wonderful, but I really should get going. I didn’t realize how late it was.” He put his fingers to his mouth and blew his wife and daughter a kiss. “See you later.”

  Renee stood for a moment with the plate of bacon and eggs in her hands. She watched Debbie deposit her empty glass into the sink without bothering to rinse it out.

  “Excuse me,” Debbie said, slipping past her stepmother into the hall before disappearing into her room.

  Renee carried the plate of bacon and eggs to the kitchen table and sat down, seeing the dream-image of her husband sprawled across the white tile floor, feeling his cold hand surround her ankle. She stuffed a piece of bacon into her mouth. “Got you,” she said.

  SEVEN

  Lynn sat alone at her kitchen table, frowning at the half-eaten bowls of cereal and still-full glasses of juice. Nicholas had arranged the leftover crust from his toast into what looked like a face, its tongue protruding, mocking her. Megan’s four-minute egg sat uncracked in its cup. “Megan,” she called to her daughter, “you didn’t touch your egg.”

  “I’m in the bathroom,” came the reply from down the hall.

  Lynn checked the clock on her microwave oven. It was after nine o’clock. Gary was late. Usually he arrived to pick the kids up first thing on Saturday morning. Today he was already fifteen minutes late. Just as well, Lynn thought, knowing how long Megan could take in the bathroom. She started clearing the dishes from the table, deciding that it was pointless to try forcing them to eat more. They ate little on Saturday mornings since the separation. Lynn assumed they were nervous and excited about seeing their father. Today they were especially anxious. Their father was taking them for the whole weekend. Lynn had heard Megan get up to go to the bathroom three times during the night. The child’s overnight bag, packed so tightly its zipper wouldn’t close, had been sitting in front of her bedroom door for two days.

  “Where do you think Daddy’s going to take us?” Nicholas asked, returning to the kitchen and watching his mother stack the dishes in the dishwasher.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart.” Your father doesn’t discuss these things with me anymore, Lynn added silently.

  “Do you think he’ll take us to Disney World?”

  “We were just at Disney World,” Lynn reminded him. Two months before your father left, she thought.

  “I know. But we didn’t get to go on all the rides. And Daddy said we could go again.”

  “Well, that’s something you’ll have to talk over with Daddy.” Would she ever get over this strange sensation of being excluded from her children’s lives whenever the subject of their father came up?

  “I bet he’s taking us to Disney World,” Nicholas said confidently.

  “Well, don’t get your hopes up, honey. But I’m sure that wherever Daddy takes you, you’ll have a good time.” Why did she say that? She wasn’t sure of any such thing.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Daddy!”

  “Why don’t you answer the door,” Lynn began, but Nicholas was already running toward the front hall. “I’ll just wait here in the kitchen with the rest of the servants,” Lynn muttered, hearing her husband’s voice, seeing him in her mind as he bent down to scoop up their young son. She pictured the dimples that creased his handsome face, and her hand groped toward the kitchen counter for support. “When does this feeling stop?” she asked, catching her reflection in the smoky glass
of the microwave oven.

  Nicholas came bounding back into the room. “Daddy wants to talk to you.”

  Lynn forced a smile onto her lips. “Why don’t you make sure you have everything ready to go,” she suggested. Again Nicholas was gone before she could complete her sentence.

  Gary was standing in the living room, staring out the large picture window that faced toward the ocean, in much the same position Marc Cameron had assumed the week before. He was wearing a new sports jacket, a sure sign, Lynn decided, that Disney World was not on the day’s agenda.

  “Hi, Gary.” Lynn cleared her throat self-consciously, making sure she was still smiling.

  “Lynn,” he said warmly, turning toward her without moving. “You look great.”

  “Thank you. How are you?”

  “Good. Great,” he corrected, unnecessary emphasis on the final word. “You?”

  “Pretty good. The kids are really excited about this weekend.”

  A look of guilt laced with unexpected defiance cut across Gary’s face, his lips wavering between a smile and a frown. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said slowly. “Something’s come up. I’m afraid I won’t be able to take the kids for the whole weekend the way we planned.”

  “What are you talking about? We decided weeks ago. It was your idea.” The sentences tumbled out before Lynn could stop them.

  “I know that, and I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.” Lynn pictured Megan’s overnight bag sitting expectantly in front of her bedroom door. “The kids have been counting on …”

  “I know that. Look, what is this in aid of? Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

  “I’m trying to understand,” she answered.

  “What’s there to understand? It’s simple. I can’t take the kids for the weekend. I’ll take them next time. I’m not saying I can’t take them for the day. I just won’t be able to keep them overnight, that’s all.”

  That’s all, Lynn repeated silently. “What about my plans?” she asked, wondering why she was persisting in a conversation that was so obviously futile.

  Gary seemed genuinely surprised that she might have any. “Well, I’ll pay for a sitter, of course, if you have plans to go out.”

  “And if I have plans to go away for the weekend?”

  “Do you?” His face became soft, curious.

  That word again, she thought, then admitted after a pause, “No, I’ll be here this weekend.”

  Gary lifted his hands into the air as if to ask what then all the fuss was about. “Would you tell them?” he asked.

  Lynn thought of all the things she could say, the stinging remarks she could administer, the arrows she could fling, then decided there was no point to any of them. Ultimately she would only be hurting herself. “Is there anything in particular you’d like me to say?” she asked, managing to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “Tell them I’m taking them somewhere special for lunch. Tell them to dress up nicely.”

  They’ll be thrilled, Lynn thought, but said nothing.

  She found Megan in her room sitting on the edge of her bed, her overnight bag unpacked, her nightclothes strewn about the floor. “You heard?” Lynn asked, though the question was unnecessary. She sat down beside her daughter and put her arm around her shoulder.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Megan said, brushing her mother’s arm aside.

  “There’ll be other weekends.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Megan repeated, staring straight ahead, refusing to look at her mother.

  “I love you,” Lynn offered.

  “So does Daddy,” Megan said quickly.

  “Of course he does,” Lynn told her, though she drew the line at defending his actions.

  Nicholas popped his head in the doorway. “Let’s go,” he said. “Daddy’s waiting.” He looked around the room, his eyes resting on Megan’s overturned overnight bag. “What’s the matter?”

  “Daddy can’t take you for the whole weekend. He’s going to take you somewhere special for lunch instead. He wants you to change and get all spiffy,” Lynn said in a gulp, watching Nicholas’s face drop and his eyes fill with tears. “He says there’ll be lots of other weekends,” she continued as Nicholas walked slowly from the room. Lynn thought in that instant that she hated her husband.

  “Goddamn you, Gary Schuster,” she said out loud after he had left with her children and she was returning Megan’s clothes to their proper drawers. “Goddamn you to hell.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “What? Lunch over so soon?” She checked her watch. Half an hour had passed since her family’s departure. Lynn walked briskly to the front door and opened it without asking who it was. Marc Cameron stood smiling on the other side.

  “I thought you might like to go for a walk on the beach,” he said.

  “It’s a very strange feeling,” Lynn was musing as she walked beside Marc Cameron along the crowded ocean strip, “to come into your kitchen and find your soon-to-be ex-husband leafing through your mail, helping himself to something from the fridge, checking things out as if it were still his home.” She tried to smile. “I guess as long as he’s paying the mortgage, that’s how he thinks of it. Not much I can do.”

  “You can tell him to go to hell.”

  “Not if I want him to keep on paying the mortgage, I can’t,” Lynn replied honestly, wondering what she was doing walking along a public beach with this man.

  “It’s probably my fault about tonight,” Marc said.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “This guy, a wrestler that I interviewed a couple of days ago, sent over some tickets to the match at the Auditorium tonight, and told me to bring my boys. I called Suzette after I got the tickets and asked if it would be all right for me to take them. She said okay. Therefore, Suzette is free tonight. Suzette doesn’t like to spend her Saturday nights alone.”

  Lynn swallowed a sudden rush of renewed anger. “Where are your boys now?”

  “They’re at a birthday party. A day at Lion Country Safari. I’m picking them up at four o’clock.”

  Lynn became aware he was staring at her but she refused to look back.

  “So you had to cancel your plans for tonight?” he asked.

  “It was just a movie with a girlfriend.” It doesn’t matter, she heard Megan say.

  “It’s not fair,” Marc said simply, sidestepping a big blue man-of-war that was lying in his path.

  “Maybe not, but that’s the way it is.”

  “You get all the headaches and he gets … what?”

  “He gets to be in love,” Lynn said, hearing her voice shake.

  “Watch out,” Marc Cameron warned, pushing Lynn roughly aside before she stepped on another man-of-war washed up by the tide. “A big juicy one too,” he said, grabbing Lynn’s arm to steady her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to push you so hard. Are you all right?”

  Lynn took a quick glance at the sand beneath her feet. “I’m still standing,” she remarked, then found herself staring directly into his eyes. And then suddenly he was kissing her. She didn’t know how it happened, and even later was unable to recall exactly what had led to what. There’d been no telltale tilt of his head, no slow angling toward her face, nothing to indicate he was intending to kiss her. His mouth was simply suddenly on top of hers, his arms around her waist, the softness of his beard pressing against her chin. She realized she had never kissed a man with a beard before, then realized that she was kissing him back. She pulled away immediately, catching her attorney’s horrified expression on the face of a woman bather who was walking past. “That was not a good idea.”

  “Sorry,” he said quickly.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not. Are you?”

  “It can’t happen again,” Lynn said, avoiding his question, looking around self-consciously, feeling all eyes watching, waiting for Marc’s next move.

  It seemed as though every resident in town was beach
side, although, in truth, their kiss had attracted little attention. Farther down the beach, closer to the water’s edge, teenagers hurled Frisbees across the bodies of sunbathers. More prudent visitors retreated to the shade of colorful cabanas. Some buried sunburned noses in books, while others watched over restless toddlers who periodically broke into impromptu runs for freedom. BATHERS TO THE RIGHT, SURFERS TO THE LEFT, a large wooden sign proclaimed from the foot of the lifeguard’s tower, but there were few surfers out today, and fewer waves. Lynn realized with relief that if anyone had seen the kiss, it was already a forgotten memory.

  Her hand touched her chin where his beard had rubbed. She found herself wishing that he would kiss her again and started walking faster in an effort to clear her head. What was she doing out for a Saturday-morning stroll with the one man common sense—not to mention her lawyer—dictated she should have nothing to do with?

  “So you’ve lived in Florida all your life?” Marc was asking, running to keep up with her.

  “All my life,” she answered curtly, not slowing her pace.

  “Your parents still live here?”

  “My father does. My mother died nine years ago.” She stopped abruptly. “Is this small talk? Are we engaging in small talk?”

  “Would you rather I kissed you again?”

  “Small talk it is,” Lynn said, resuming her brisk pace. It was several miles back to where they had started. She might as well make the best of it, although the beach wasn’t great for walking this morning. The sand was too soft and wet, and her feet kept sinking into it.

  “What does your father do?” Marc asked, having hit his stride and having no trouble keeping up with her.

  “He’s retired. He was in waterproofing, but he sold the business after my mother died.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “Plays golf mostly. He got married again a few years ago.”

  “You don’t like her,” Marc stated, and Lynn stopped again, turning to him in surprise.