Nathan stared up at the ceiling. The corners of his jaw were heavy, lumpy. “There was a woman like that,” he began. He shut his eyes and covered them with his hand. “It just wasn’t possible,” he said finally. “Not possible, that’s all.”
They left the beige office and turned onto Sixty-third Street, to Lily’s favorite restaurant. Nathan ordered Cointreau in quinine.
“Something Alex showed me.” A smile that quickly faded.
“You’re melancholic,” Lily said. His hand was resting on the soft linen tablecloth and she closed hers over it. “More melancholic than usual.”
“I’ve always been afraid I’d end up like my father,” he said. “Dry and lifeless. I think it’s happened after all.”
His cousin pursed her lips and drew her chin back. “You’re nothing like him, Nathan. I remember him well. He couldn’t enjoy anything. Not music, not laughter. Not a sunny day. You’re much more like your mother.”
“You know what they always said about me, my father and Irv? They said Mom turned me into a sissy.”
“You’re a sensitive, cultivated man,” Lily said.
“But do you think I’m effeminate?” Nathan was leaning toward her, studying her face for a sign.
Lily raked her fork over her brook trout, pushing the almonds to one side. She looked up at him, her pretty cheekbone resting in her palm, her pale eyes consoling. “That’s what you’ve feared the most, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve really been afraid of all these years.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Nathan said.
“Nonetheless.… You want some of these almonds?” she said. “They put on too many almonds.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I just think I’ve missed out on the juice somehow.”
“You’ve done your best,” she said. “Shall we have dessert?”
“Of course, dessert,” Nathan said. “I’m not my father, after all.”
Lily beckoned the waiter and ordered two crèmes brûlées.
“Do you think it’s too late for therapy?” Nathan asked.
“It’s never a matter of timing,” she told him.
“Well, I’ve started a new affair.”
“That’s promising.”
“Maxene Abrams. I’m sure you’ve met her. Stew Abrams’s widow.”
“Now that’s timing,” she laughed.
“Actually,” Nathan said, “she determined the timing.” He cocked his head and looked at her sadly. He lifted his dessert spoon and then set it down again. “I’m impotent, Lily. The medication’s left me impotent.”
“I don’t think therapy is your answer, Nathan.”
“Too far gone, huh?”
“I’ve had men like you as patients,” she said. “They spend years wondering what’s wrong with everyone else.”
“Is it possible my little cousin has become a man-hater?”
“I know you, Nathan,” she said. “Just change your medication. That’s your best bet.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“I think it’s your best bet, Nathan. I really do.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Have some crème brûlée, Nathan. It’s absolutely delicious.”
Thirty-four
There were evenings when he could not say where his’ wife was. He liked to imagine her at the ceramics studio at the Lexington Avenue “Y”. Often enough she was there, he knew, and it was agreeable to think of her there, chatting with other women, hands damp, slathered with clay.
He had, of course, considered other possibilities. He sometimes thought she might be dining with Tom. He had heard they’d been seen together. It did not matter, really; she was entitled. Still, if it were Tom, after all this time …
There were evenings, he knew, that she spent at that women’s gallery in Soho. Perhaps she was helping a colleague hang a show, perhaps she was setting up a show of her own. Or they might all be gathered in one of those dreadful lofts, talking about art. Women’s art. It was, apparently, some wholly distinct thing. Louise Bourgeois! Carla had insisted he attend a show of hers. “Penis envy!” he had said, and then left.
One evening he attended an opening of Carla’s work. Wood, marble. Materials that needed chipping away. He hadn’t thought she had it in her. Young women in black tuxedos, sleek, colorless hair, inscrutable faces. Young men in turtlenecks, the same sleek hair, looking strangely like priests. “You might be the new Louise Bourgeois,” he told his wife after browsing through the gallery.
“She really is marvelous,” a tall, large-boned woman in a white tuxedo was saying. “You must be very proud.”
Nathan turned to reply. “Yes, of course,” was all he could manage. The sentence he wanted to say was much too complicated. How to reply to Nina Phillips’s compliment of the bizarre sculptures which, he thought, revealed his wife’s yearning for the very organ Nina had … the organ Philip had …? Oh, the hell with it, Nathan decided.
Nina had settled in New York. She’d purchased a thriving midtown ophthalmology practice, determined to enjoy the serenity she’d struggled so hard to achieve. Children loved her light, humorous approach and so pediatric ophthalmology had become her subspecialty.
But serenity still eluded her. She dated men: athletes, doctors, entrepreneurs. She told them everything right away; no deceits, no heartaches, she reasoned. Many genuinely liked her, she knew, but Nina was a profoundly intelligent and perceptive woman and it soon became clear that she would never feel loved by any of these men. She would always be a curiosity, a badge they could award themselves. Even the most earnest, those who appreciated the subtle rewards of undressing her, making love to her, even they were subject to self-congratulation. And for Nina, that ruined everything.
There was, of course, her work. There was also tennis, playing and coaching, some small measure of celebrity. There was friendship, scattered and usually unfulfilling. And there was that one friendship that had endured from its unpromising beginnings: There was Carla.
Some evenings, they met for dinner and a movie. Sometimes they attended a lecture. On other evenings they dined at Nina’s apartment. A salad, wine, conversation. Nina stretched her long legs out onto the glass coffee table; Carla sat opposite in a deep, comfortable chair. It might have been Homecoming weekend at Yale, she might have been planning to wear the powder blue suit tomorrow. Nina still loved her in that shade. Often, she wore the bracelet with the Yale key.
“Tulips!” Nina exclaimed when Carla thrust the bouquet at her. “You know how much I love these. Red tulips in a slightly overheated apartment go mad in no time, twisting and bending, just begging for van Gogh to capture their torment. Oh God, Carla, I love red tulips! You know I do!” She set them in a wide glass vase to give them room to “go mad.”
“Alex is back from Italy again,” Carla said when the two of them were in the kitchen fixing dinner. “She’s had every grant imaginable for that dissertation of hers and it’s still not done. When will the foundations wise up to all those Art History majors hanging out in Florence, sipping caffe latte?”
“I’m glad she’s back,” Nina said. “You’ve missed her.”
“You’re sweet,” Carla said, “but you know, she’s never really home anymore. She spends her time with Martin, that musician who’s hung around her since high school, and with Nathan. He’s become part of their circle now. Heaven only knows how he managed that.”
“He loves music.”
“He loves their youth, their language. He even loves their dungarees. It’s understandable enough: He loves their energy. I just don’t know what they see in him.”
“He’s erudite. He tells a good story and,” Nina nudged a wide elbow into Carla, “he pays for their dinner. Do you suppose you’re jealous?”
“Frankly, yes, a little.”
“But you do have Lisle,” Nina reminded her.
“Lisle saved my life,” Carla said. “She really forced me to be an artist.”
“S
he’s a great kid, Lisle, and Alex may yet return.” A long arm wrapped itself around Carla’s shoulder and drew her to the large rib cage with its small soft breast.
“You’re the best of everything now,” Carla told her friend. “A loving mother and still.…”
“A protective man?”
“Well, something like that. What I mean is you’re still the same. It’s hard to say this after all you’ve been through, but to me you’re still the same old Phil.”
Nina released her and turned to opening the wine. They carried a yellow salad bowl, two matching plates, and the wine to the living room, and set up dinner around the tulips.
Silence. It was common enough between them but this time it worried Carla. “Phil always loved red tulips,” she said hopefully. “He loved red tulips and lots of scallions in the salad. Do you want me to ignore all that?”
“I’m not denying what you said,” Nina said. Her gaze rose above Carla’s head and lost itself in the bright dots of light beyond the window. Then she tucked her chin down abruptly and focussed, once again, on Carla.
“How’s Nathan doing?”
“You mean his health? He’s coming along.”
“I mean everything. Nathan. How’s it going?”
“The same.” Carla could not look up. “Worse,” she finally whispered. “Much worse. His medicine has some awful side effects. It’s really horrible now.”
“You could still leave,” Nina said. “Every day is the first day of … well, you know.”
Carla shook her head. “It’s gone on too long. I can’t divorce him. I’ve made … how many stabs at it? And the girls. I couldn’t do that to them.”
“Perhaps they’re angry at you for putting up with it.”
“Do you think that’s it? Really, Philip, I don’t know how it got so awful. I never loved him. I’ve made such a mess!”
Nina pulled her knees up to her chin and then pushed them forward to stand up. She walked around the table and sat down beside Carla. “It’s all a mess, this man-woman thing. Believe me, I know better than anyone.”
Carla cocked her head and blinked hard. “Oh Philip, Philip! Why couldn’t you have liked women? You’re still my best friend, my best love. What an awful bungle!”
Nina reached out and pulled Carla’s face toward her. She held it, stroking the shiny hair.
“You know,” she began softly, “you’re absolutely right about me. I am the same. I am still Philip. But you’re wrong about me not liking women. I’ve always liked women, Carla. I’ve always been a woman!”
She sat back now and drew her knees up to her chin. “Philip wasn’t gay, you know. He just had to spare you all this.” She gestured vaguely around the living room. “I mean this,” she said, finally pointing to herself.
“Anyway, the nasty thing of it is …” She pulled the salad plates together and stacked them in the empty bowl. She drained the wine from her glass and then from Carla’s and then rose and carried the dishes to the kitchen.
Carla slid her feet back into the loafers she’d dropped under the table. “What?” she asked. “What’s the nasty thing?”
Nina leaned across the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room and waited until she could fix Carla’s eyes with her own. “The thing is, I am still Philip and I still love you.” She paused to gauge the effect of her words.
Carla was looking up at her, tears welling in her eyes.
“It’s not working out with men and me,” Nina continued, softly, deliberately. “Over and over again I have to face up to the fact that sex with men is just no good.”
“Poor Philip! After all you’ve been through!”
“Well, twelve years with the shrink and it’s come to this, Carla. I am gay. I’m a gay woman. There, it’s out.”
Carla looked into Nina’s face as long as she could bear to and then down at the floor. Finally, she turned her back and walked to the farthest corner of the room. She stood there, hugging herself tightly.
“Why is this harder for me than the sex change was?” she asked.
Nina shrugged lightly. “Perhaps my sex change made sense of things that puzzled you. It explained why we couldn’t be together.”
“And this?” Carla’s voice was barely audible.
Nina was standing behind her now, her hands on Carla’s shoulders. “This explains why we can be together. If you want to, that is.”
“Philip!” Carla turned to face her friend. “I mean Nina. NINA!” She groped about for her purse, her coat, her gloves. “I’m sorry, I’m really very sorry. I have to go.” She tucked her gloves into her purse and then pulled them out again. “Nathan will worry. I’m sorry, Philip. I really must go.”
“Please don’t be upset,” Nina said. She stood, blocking Carla’s path to the door. “I do love you, Carla. I always have, you know.”
Carla began by reaching around the tall figure, groping for the doorknob. But in the end, her fists were on Nina; they pushed hard against her chest, they pummelled her.
Nina planted herself to receive the blows. “Please, Carla. I know this will take time. Just promise you’ll think about it.”
“Oh God!” Carla cried. It was a sound that welled up from the soles of her feet, her knees, that swirled furiously in her stomach, filled her chest to bursting and finally flew into the air. “Oh, God, Philip! ALL … THESE … YEARS!”
Thirty-five
Even as the line she stood in inched its way toward the exit, Carla felt the Sarasota air condensing on her face, vanquishing the stale atmosphere of the Delta airplane with a tropical brew of coconut, orchid, and brine. She emerged into the smallish terminal, her linen suit lewdly wrinkled, her bone-colored pumps too confining, her hair rising up to meet the moisture with a fine halo of frizz. She’d visited Florida many times since Felix’s death and still it was impossible to leave New York sufficiently persuaded of just how excessive her attire would seem on arrival. She smoothed her skirt under her as she entered the cab. High hedges of hibiscus, lurid palms, the thickly sweet, verdant smell of Florida in her nostrils. Perspiration on her brow and seeping through her panty hose.
The marble lobby at 1534 Gulf Drive was frigid and dry, and the acrid odor of chlorine wafted in from the pool at the rear. In what she had always thought of as an icy vault, this chemical smell seemed, to Carla, particularly horrid. She watched the lights move down the numerals over each of the two elevators, forcing her gaze away from the easel that stood in the center of the lobby. A chalkboard announcing the death yesterday of Leonard Marcus: Funeral services tomorrow. Edna and the family sitting shiva in apartment 5-E. A memorial service in the lobby next Sunday.
She stepped out of her shoes almost as Sophie opened the door to her, and gave herself over to her mother’s hug, her questions about the trip, about New York. And yes, she had remembered to bring a can of those Italian biscuits Sophie so adored. And yes, she would love a shower. Immediately.
Throughout dinner, she was filled with unease. She was looking for an opening, the right moment to broach the only subject on her mind. Except for answering her mother’s questions, she found she had nothing else to say. They finished their meal in silence and stood in an ancient arrangement, one washing, the other drying, the few dishes they had used.
Finally they were settled on the terrace, facing out to the Gulf of Mexico and the sultry city lights along the coast.
“Something is wrong,” her mother said. It was not a question. “Tell me, liebchen.”
“I’ve decided to leave Nathan,” Carla said. She did not turn from the view beyond the terrace.
“That’s impossible,” Sophie declared.
“Nevertheless,” Carla said flatly, “I’m getting a divorce.”
“Whatever is troubling you, sweetheart, I know we can fix it,” her mother said.
“I never loved him, Mother. I told you that before I married him.”
“But since then …” Sophie began.
“It’s gotten worse. You won
’t talk me out of this, Mother. I’ve come to tell you, not to ask permission. I know it hurts you. I hate hurting you. But it’s a very good thing for me.” Carla remained facing the Gulf, unable to turn to her mother.
“Your father loved that man like a son,” Sophie murmured.
“I’m not so sure,” Carla said. “One day, before he died, he apologized to me, you know.”
“He didn’t force you, liebchen. He loved you. And that other man from Yale … well, he wanted to save you from that.”
Carla rose and began to pace the narrow terrace.
“This will be terrible for the girls,” Sophie continued. “Alex so close to him and all.”
“Alex is a grown woman, Mother. She can manage. Anyway, I’m convinced this is the best thing I can do for my girls.”
Sophie rose now and stood in her daughter’s path. “So! So this is what it’s about!” Her voice was angry. “It’s those feminist friends of yours! Those women running around by themselves …”
“This is a different world, Mother! I don’t expect you to understand.” Carla began to tremble as she realized she was shouting.
She left the terrace and pulled the leatherette room divider closed. In the space that was now her bedroom, she shed her robe and sank onto the lumpy mattress of the sofabed. She wrapped her arms about herself and stroked her bare shoulders, her arms. She heard her mother pad to the bedroom and close the door. She was certain she was doing the right thing and yet, the pain in her mother’s face … that gnawed at her. She lay flat and naked on the cool sheet, letting the air conditioner dry her skin. She thought how much she loved sleeping nude.
Toward dawn, she slipped back into her robe and walked out onto the terrace. The night air slicked a briny coat over her cool face. Soon, the sun coming up behind the building made the Gulf a wide plate of pink and orange and she could hear Sophie in the kitchen fixing breakfast.
“You know,” Sophie said when she had finished her coffee, “these independent women who are your friends now are not such a happy lot. What will you do, a woman alone? How will you keep those wonderful friends you and Nathan have? They won’t be so nice when you’re not married anymore.”
The Speed of Light Page 18