We Could Be Beautiful

by Swan Huntley

“No shopping?”

  “Not today. Maybe another time.”

  “Okay, honey. Call me. Call me if you need anything at all, okay?” If Susan believed in regrets, I might have thought she looked regretful then, ashamed that she’d suggested I sue my own mother. Or not. Her face was so frozen with Botox, it was hard to tell.

  25

  William came home looking dead tired and extremely tan. “Many outdoor restaurants,” he explained. “And Michael insisted I go to a tanning salon with him.”

  “Your boss made you go to a tanning salon?”

  “He didn’t force me. I agreed to go.”

  “Oh my gosh.” I thought this was hilarious. “Bankers at a tanning salon, that’s great.”

  “It was rather comical. I’d never been to a tanning salon before. They gave us small goggles.”

  I wrapped myself around him. “I love how eccentric you are.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve missed you, Catherine.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. Don’t go to work today.”

  “Unfortunately, I must.”

  “Sit with me first. Just for five minutes.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  We sat in bed together. With Herman, of course, who was psychotically happy about reuniting with his master. I leaned into William, put my head on his shoulder. He felt so warm and good and sturdy and he was playing with my hair and I loved it.

  “What else did you do over there?”

  “Nothing of interest. I saw the inside of the hotel most of the time.”

  I thought of the two orange golf balls in his desk and how he had never talked to me about golf. “Did you play golf?”

  “No, I didn’t play golf.”

  I squeezed into him. “I just want to hold you here all day, I’m so happy to see you.”

  He stroked my hair. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry Max showed up. I was sure I told his mother I would be gone.”

  “It’s okay. It was fun.”

  “How was he?”

  “Who, Max? He was great. Give any kid some sugar and they’ll be happy.”

  “Point taken. And how is Caroline?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Bob called me. He was concerned that she spent the night here.”

  I hadn’t mentioned this to William because I knew he was kind of particular about his space, and he might have been bothered that Caroline had slept in his spot in the bed.

  “She did, yes.” I raised my head off his arm so I was looking at him. “Bob called you about that? Why?”

  “I think he was worried.” He took a strand of my hair and ran his fingers all the way to the end.

  “Caroline thinks he’s cheating on her.”

  “Oh? I hope that’s not the case. That would be devastating for Caroline.” He looked genuinely upset, and I thought that was very sweet—how protective he felt of my sister.

  “Did Bob mention anything about it?”

  “No, he did not.”

  “Would you tell me if he did?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I would tell you—of course I would. And I would tell Caroline. Absolutely.” He traced his fingers down my spine. “The party was nice?”

  “Yes, it was nice.” I didn’t feel like talking. I just wanted his body there next to mine.

  He looked at his watch. “That’s five minutes. I have to get dressed for work, my darling.”

  “No.” I squeezed him. “Don’t leave me.”

  •

  After he had showered and dressed for work, he went down to his office and called my name. “Catherine, can you come down here please?”

  He had a thing about not yelling. He had actually suggested installing an intercom system to avoid yelling. So I was surprised he hadn’t walked up the stairs to tell me whatever he was going to tell me.

  I pushed the swinging door open. He was sitting in the green mesh chair, facing the window. He swiveled around. His hands were folded in his lap. His hair was still wet. He wore an off-white shirt, or was it white? It was hard to tell.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Come,” he said.

  Why was he being so serious? Was this a role-play thing? Were we going to fuck on the desk now? But then, when I got closer, I saw the open cigar box in his lap.

  “Did you open this?”

  How could he possibly have known? I had put everything back exactly as I’d found it. Okay, maybe I had forgotten the order of the photographs, but who would remember that?

  “Yes.”

  “Please don’t go through my things,” he said, his voice as steady and mild as always.

  “Sorry, I just…I was in here, and I just opened it.” My body was tense. I wanted him to say, Come sit on my lap, it’s okay. “I’m sorry. You look so cute in those photos though. I loved looking at them.”

  “If you had asked to see my photographs, I would gladly have shown them to you.”

  “I know, I’m just…You weren’t here.”

  “I need you to respect my things.”

  “I do respect your things.”

  “So this won’t happen again.” He closed the box, put it back exactly in the spot where it had been. It looked like he was even measuring it against one of the wooden swirls on the desk. Maybe that’s how he had known: I hadn’t aligned it correctly.

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  He sat back in the chair, looked directly at me. “I accept your apology. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. And you can look through all my things if you want.” I forced a laugh.

  “I would never do that,” he said. “If I looked through your things, I wouldn’t respect you.”

  I nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you sure you understand? I need this to be very clear.”

  “I understand.”

  He nodded. He was happy with my responsiveness. He opened his arms like I wanted him to. “Come here.”

  I went. I hugged him. I was still standing. He didn’t get up from the chair. It was an awkward position. My sweat was drying on my temples now. It felt cold. He kissed my forehead. “I must get going,” he said. I let go of him. He took his briefcase off the floor. I followed him to the front door. “Behave yourself today,” he said to me, and winked. A young woman walked by on the street, carrying a fake Louis Vuitton and looking very insecure. She was probably new to New York. She probably wanted to be me, the long-haired woman with the hot guy who lived in the gorgeous house in the West Village.

  The driver (I could never remember his name) opened the door of the black Escalade and William got in. He didn’t look at me, he didn’t wave. I watched them drive away and felt guilty. William was right. It was unfair of me to go through his things. William was right and I was wrong, and going forward, I would be better.

  •

  That afternoon I sent him tulips at work with a note: “Thank you for your forgiveness. I love you. C.” I went to the expensive dog store. I bought Herman three sweaters, a dog cupcake, and a bag of bones. No, it wasn’t cheap, but these were gifts. Buying cheap gifts would just be cruel. I would save money in other ways.

  I went to Whole Foods and bought food that was not premade. Stuffed bell peppers had been one of our staples growing up. I would make Esmeralda’s stuffed bell peppers. If Mom were lucid, I would have called and asked for the recipe. I felt sorry for myself, thinking that I couldn’t ask her now. I felt sorry for myself thinking about how cold it was in the produce section. With heavy fingers, I typed “stuffed peppers” into Google on my phone.

  I bought brown rice and mushrooms and garlic and onions and a bunch of spices. When I got home, it turned out I already owned all these spices. I would have Lucia take the doubles home. I didn’t want William to see I’d made a mistake.

  I texted William: “Did you get the flowers? ☺”

  He wrote: “Yes, thank you.”


  Fine, I thought, don’t give me a smiley face, I don’t deserve one.

  I wrote: “I’m making dinner! ☺ What time will you be home?”

  He wrote: “7.”

  I put on a cute apron with cherries on it and I slaved. This assuaged my guilt. The more my makeup melted off my face, the better I felt.

  “Stuffed bell peppers are easy and fun to make,” the recipe said.

  “Or not,” I said. I could never understand why people liked to cook. It was so much work for the twelve minutes it took to eat the thing you had made. I preheated the oven, I cooked the rice, I sliced the tops off the peppers and removed the seeds, I sliced the onion. When my eyes watered, I thought I deserved that. I put on my sunglasses to reduce the tears. It helped, sort of. Lucia laughed when she saw me. “Miss Catherine!”

  I kept chopping. I was trying to get it done quickly. I could barely see. “Lucia, take these spices home.”

  She picked up the red pepper flakes, shook them. “Okay.” She stood there, watching me.

  “Yes, Lucia?”

  “I stay and help?”

  She had already changed into her street clothes: a jeans jacket and jeans. Was she on her way to a square dance? Her shift was over. But that wasn’t why I said no. I wanted to keep slaving. I deserved this punishment. “No, go home and rest.”

  “Okay.” She took a wooden spoon from the drawer and stirred the onions for me. “You stir,” she said.

  “Yeah, okay, thanks. Bye.”

  “Bye-bye.” When Herman jumped up her leg, she said, “No! Bad! Bad!” Herman actually stopped, and retreated to his igloo.

  I forgot about the rice and it burned and I had to cook more rice. I managed not to burn the onions. I managed to stuff the peppers and put them in the oven. I set the table. The good china. And candles. I thought about the better china I had registered for. That would be nice. We could get rid of this old stuff. Lucia could have it.

  Caroline texted: “What are you doing?”

  I wrote: “Cooking.”

  She wrote: “Why?”

  I decided to write to Mae Simon again, even if it was the wrong Mae Simon. “Hi, it’s Catherine West. If that name rings a bell, please respond ASAP. I will pay you to respond at this point.”

  At 6:59, when the table was all set and the peppers had been plated, William wrote: “Sorry, client dinner. Don’t wait up.” I might have been glad. I had done all this work, and he hadn’t showed up. I was the good one now, he was the bad one.

  I put the peppers in the fridge with attitude, and I left our place settings and the unlit candle on the table so he could see what a thoughtful homemaker I was.

  The woman in the tapestry watched me. Her worn and hollow gaze, she was always watching. I hated her. Especially in the last panel, curled at the foot of that mountain like a weak little bitch, I hated her.

  I wrote back to William: “No problem, honey!”

  Then I went for a run. I took William’s route up the Hudson. These were the things William saw. The lights on the water, and New Jersey, so close. It was windy, the water was choppy. My hair flipped around violently. I pumped angry music. I felt strong and alive. I ran for half an hour straight before turning back, and I ran the whole way back. It felt good to know that I was capable of running for this long. If I could run for this long, I could endure anything. I wondered how long William could go without stopping.

  •

  The next morning I awoke to him watching me. “Hello, my darling,” he said. “You look like an angel.”

  I smiled, touched his leg.

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “I know.”

  “Thank you for the lovely dinner. I saw it in the fridge. And for the flowers, and I also saw the things you bought for Herman. You are going to make a wonderful wife.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’d like to spend the day with you,” he said, “unless you have other plans.”

  “No,” I said, “the weekends are for you.”

  “For us.”

  He seemed to be waiting for me to say it, too. If he wanted me to follow him, I would.

  “For us,” I said.

  After we made love, William pressed my knees into my chest for me. I smiled convincingly and tried to breathe.

  •

  We went to a new gallery on the Lower East Side. The outside looked like a warehouse and the inside was renovated. Well, partly renovated. This meant it was in the perfect stage of gentrification—on its way up but not yet overly popularized, and still a decent distance from the nearest Whole Foods. The walls were freshly painted, and the cement floor was covered in a mess of drippy accidents, which was either authentic or staged to look artsy—it was hard to tell.

  William thought it was important to expand our collection with more Asian pieces. The artist whose work he had brought me here to see punched holes in canvases and sold them. The small canvases had one hole. The larger canvases had more. They all looked the same, except for the slightly different ways in which the canvas material had happened to rip.

  Connie, the gallerist, who wore jeans rolled up to her calves and four-inch stilettos, assured us these were very important pieces. They intoned movement. She used the word violence. She used the word post-postmodernism. This artist was blowing up in Japan and the American market was only just catching wind. It was the perfect time to buy.

  “Yes,” William said, “he’s getting quite big. He’s a lovely man, he deserves it.”

  “You know Chino?” Connie said, obviously impressed.

  “I do. He owes me a piece, in fact. He sent me here today to pick one out.”

  Connie took a long look at William. And then she said, “Cool.”

  “I like this one,” William said about a larger piece with three holes.

  “This one is very diverse,” Connie said.

  It took me a second to realize they were waiting for my take. “Diverse,” I repeated.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I appreciate it for what it is,” I said. It was definitely something people would talk about when they came over. A great conversation piece. “Can you frame it?”

  “Of course, and you’d want to, to protect the canvas.”

  “Right.”

  “Connie, may Catherine and I have a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  Connie teetered back to her little black desk in the corner.

  I looked at the canvas. William set his chin on the top of my head. “What do you think, Catherine?”

  “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

  “I like it. But if it’s not your cup of tea, we can hold off.”

  Was it my cup of tea? It could be, I guess. I knew Susan would like it. Caroline probably would, too. And Dan—But who cared about what Dan thought and why was his existence even crossing my mind?

  “I think it will spark conversation,” I said, and gave myself two points for using the word spark.

  “I agree.”

  We stood side by side, looking at the piece. We were close but not touching. I felt the electric field between us. I wondered what color it was, if it had a color, and came up with green. The electric field between us was like a bunch of green fireflies, lighting up at random. My eyes had focused on the shape of one of the holes. I wanted to say it looked like a star, or an octagon, but it didn’t. Its shape wasn’t obviously anything I could name.

  “Should we take it then?”

  Obviously he wanted it, and he was getting it for free, so there was no reason to disagree. “Sure,” I said, “let’s take it.”

  “Wonderful.” He seemed suddenly more awake. His eyes flickered and then settled back on the punctured canvas. He put his arms around me. Acquiring art always turned William on. It probably made him feel powerful.

  “Connie, we’ll take this one,” he said, barely raising his voice. The echo carried easily through the expensive garage.

  “Good choice.” Connie teetered back t
oward us. “I’ll just have to check with Chino. I believe he’s in Ireland at the—”

  “You can deliver it next week,” William said.

  “Right. I—”

  “Thank you, Connie. Have a lovely day.” William took my hand and led me out of the cool, shadowy space and into the sun.

  •

  We went to lunch to celebrate. A hole-in-the-wall Italian place. William ordered us a bottle of prosecco. I thought of my mother.

  “Cheers to our new piece,” he said.

  “Cheers.” We clinked. The couple that acquires art together stays together.

  Still high from the acquisition, he ordered oysters and said, “I’d like to take you skiing in the Alps someday. There is a small town on the Swiss side, Crans. You will love it. Maybe Caroline and Bob can join us.”

  “That would be great.” I didn’t like to ski—I didn’t like any sport where the getting ready took thirty times longer than the sport itself—but skiing in the Alps was different. It was the Alps. I also didn’t like oysters, but I didn’t tell him that. Gwen had probably loved oysters. Later I would tell him. I would tell him once we were married. Once we were married, he couldn’t leave me so easily. Once we were married, I could be more honest.

  “Does Caroline like to ski?” he asked.

  I wanted to say, Why do you care if Caroline likes to ski or not? But then his phone beeped, and he said, “It’s Michael. He’d like to go tanning here in the city.”

  “Maybe Michael has a crush on you,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. He was typing.

  “Are you going to go?”

  A pause. We sipped. He chewed a morsel of bread.

  “He is the boss.”

  “Well, the color looks great on you.”

  “Thanks.” He smiled.

  “It makes your smile so white.”

  He smiled more, still looking at his phone. “It says on my calendar we meet with the priest tomorrow—is that right?”

  “Yes. What kind of stuff is he going to ask us?”

  “Have you not done your Catholic research, darling? I’m surprised. You’re so good at research.” He winked. This was obviously a reference to my snooping.

  When I said, “Please be nice to me,” I reminded myself of Caroline.

  “I will be,” he said, and touched my hand. “So, tomorrow.” He sat up straighter. As usual, the restaurant furniture made him look huge. “The priest—Father Ness, right?”