by Holly LeCraw
Marcella glanced at her reflection in the mirror as if it were another person’s. She tried to tilt her head gaily. “Well, what shall I wear?”
Toni rolled her eyes. “A bathing suit.”
“Your favorite one?” she said. Toni smiled. She had once or twice grudgingly told Marcella, with a shade of her old preschooler adoration, that she looked good in a particular striped navy-and-white one-piece.
“Well,” Marcella said, “I’ll get right on it.” She fluttered her hands, shooing her daughter away, and Toni grinned again, gratified by this little bit of power. But as soon as the door closed behind her, Marcella’s eyes filled with tears. Her baby Antonia was gone, gone. Could she possibly know now how Marcella loved her, how she wanted to fall prostrate at her feet, keep her entirely for herself? But instead Marcella knew that every day she lost a little more of Toni, just as her own mother had lost her. Another child would have eased her desperation. She could have loved them all, much better than she was able to love now. It was a long moment before she finally bent to open her dresser drawer.
The Atkinsons had been to the McClatcheys’ only once before, for an annual meeting of the tennis club. Cecil and Betsy seemed like relaxed, unpretentious people, with their Southern accents and ready smiles, who nevertheless intimidated Marcella, Betsy especially. She wanted very much for Betsy McClatchey to like her. She was a sturdy woman with dark hair touched with gray, ten years Marcella’s senior. She was a good tennis player, as Marcella was not, and had lovely manners, and always smiled at Marcella quite kindly, as if they shared a secret. But Marcella suspected she smiled at everyone that way, and could think of nothing to say to her. Betsy McClatchey, she thought, was a woman who had very few moments of self-doubt.
When they arrived at the party there were fifteen or twenty adults there, and kids in the pool. Betsy was passing around hors d’oeuvres, and kissed Marcella on the cheek, but then glided away. “Shrimp on fried grits cakes!” Annette Doyle exclaimed. “Imagine! Betsy is so creative!” Marcella had a feeling this was a criticism, but wasn’t sure, and anyway she felt too tired to parse the comments of someone like Annette Doyle. “This must taste like home,” Annette continued. “Aren’t grits like polenta?”
Marcella swallowed her mouthful of shrimp. “A bit,” she said. She knew quite well she was supposed to say more. She could think of nothing. There was a pause and then Annette waved to someone over her shoulder. “Hi!” she called. “Someone I haven’t seen in ages,” she said brightly. “Excuse me!”
“Of course,” Marcella said, and watched Annette Doyle make her escape.
Toni was already in the pool and Anthony was talking to a group of men near the grill. She saw him eyeing her like a faraway bodyguard, but he did not join her. She went over and sat down in an empty lounge chair at the less-occupied end of the patio, and finally, after a few minutes, Anthony came over to ask what she would like to drink.
“Nothing, darling.” She wanted to laugh—not at him but with him, at his ever-dutiful manners. She wanted him to pull a chair near hers and sit and be lonely with her. If people thought her odd and aloof, well, she and Anthony could be that way together.
“Nothing? You’re sure?” He seemed to be daring her to get upset. She had not been drinking at all when she was pregnant.
“Yes,” she said. “Darling, go talk to your friends.” If he could not read her, she did not have the energy to help him. He reached down and squeezed her shoulder, as if she were a sort of teammate, one he felt obligated to support. Suddenly she did not want him to go. “Look at Toni,” she whispered.
“What about her?”
“How big she is. How beautiful.” Toni had just climbed up the steps of the other end of the pool and was standing, one hip thrown out and her head to the side, twisting the water out of her long honey-blond hair. The outlines of her funny little breast-buds were visible under the triangles of her bikini top.
Marcella looked up at her husband. The pride on his face was so fierce it frightened her. “I don’t know why you want more,” he said. “You always want more.” He turned and walked away.
Marcella leaned her head back on the chaise. She wanted to go to sleep. She wanted to take the car and go home, but she could not bear Anthony’s anger, nor any eyes or questions as she left the party. She glanced behind her, at a shaded hedge of blue mophead hydrangeas, and actually considered creeping through them into the neighboring yard and then making her way home on foot. She knew she was conspicuous, alone in the chair, that people would continue to assume she was standoffish and haughty. Then she saw that Cecil McClatchey was headed for her, two silver cups in his hands.
She straightened her back and swung one leg to the ground but by then Cecil was beside her saying, “No, no, don’t get up for me, I’m coming to you!” He dragged another chair close to hers. She flinched at the noise it made scraping over the flagstones, but he seemed not to notice, and sat down and handed her one of the cups. “I brought you a mint julep. House specialty. Ever had one? I put in extra mint, just for you. Yankee mint from the yard here. But I think it will be all right.”
The silver tumbler was sweating and almost painfully cold in her hand. She held it up to her hot face. “Ahh,” she said.
“You’re supposed to drink it.”
“Oh. Of course.” She heard herself laugh. She didn’t care for hard liquor, but she took a sip anyway. The bourbon burned down her throat.
“You don’t like it,” Cecil McClatchey said instantly.
“No, I do. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I always thought this drink was—how do you say it?—a sort of punch.”
Cecil laughed. “Punch is for the little ol’ ladies at church,” he said.
As Cecil chatted beside her she surreptitiously examined him. He was a tall man, now with a little roll around his middle; he was balding, and his face had softened, but he had a strong chin and kind eyes. She imagined that he had been handsome in a gangly sort of way twenty-five years before, when he and Betsy must have met, perhaps with that thin, almost starved-looking face that young men sometimes have when they are all energy, and life hasn’t layered on deposits of laziness or bitterness or disappointment. Not that Cecil McClatchey looked as if he had had to bear up under much misfortune. “You going in?” he said, and gestured toward the pool.
“It’s tempting,” she lied. “It is so hot today.”
“We’ll have to get rid of the teenagers.” He grinned. “My crazy uncle put this thing in forty years ago. All the Yankees disapprove. Like ol’ Anthony over there,” he said, and winked. “Why, the beach is just down the road, and it’s free.”
Marcella smiled back timidly. She felt any skills she had ever had at flirtation were atrophied beyond help.
“You drink up,” Cecil said, “and I’ll be back to check on you.”
The way he said it made her suddenly feel he knew what had happened to her—he sounded solicitous, as if she had a disease. But how could he know? She glanced wildly at Anthony, but no, he wouldn’t have told anyone, not here. And not Cecil. When she looked back, she saw that Cecil had misinterpreted. He had gotten up too quickly, and his jovial expression had hardened into a practiced host face. There was no way for her to explain.
But she wasn’t sorry to have him go. He had been trying hard, and failing, but of course the failure had been hers. Now she could be quiet again, she could try to disappear. It was tremendously hot and some of the adults indeed were starting to get into the pool. The younger parents were playing with their children, and the designated life of the party, Larry Stowell, his potbelly hanging over his trunks, did a cannonball off the diving board and made all the kids squeal. Anthony was still by the grill, and the bar too, she noticed, his shirt still on. Betsy sat at the edge of the pool with her legs dangling in, looking proper and lighthearted at the same time, her cotton dress pulled up above her knees.
In a burst of desire to be carefree, to belong, Marcella stood up, drew her black linen shift
over her head, and sat down again on the chaise.
She was immediately sorry. But she did not want to put her dress back on again right away, so noticeably. She was conscious of her body as a foreign thing. She stretched one leg in front of her and examined it: the foot, the calf, the knee of a stranger, all part of a body that had betrayed her time and time again. She placed a hand on her belly. Empty. She was empty.
She looked for Toni in the pool and found her after a moment, or rather found her feet, pointed skyward in an underwater handstand. Then the feet disappeared and Toni’s head surfaced, as slick as a mermaid’s. She arched her neck and smoothed the water away from her eyes and forehead and down the length of her hair. She knew that people were watching her. She was that sort of girl—she would be watched, and she would know it. It was beginning.
Nearby Betsy was still at the side of the pool, and her daughter, Callie, came and sat next to her. Callie was in college, with bright blond hair and a trim, athletic figure like her mother’s. She murmured something to Betsy and they laughed, like girls together, like friends. Will Toni and I do that? Marcella thought. Why am I so sure I will lose her?
Just then Toni herself flew through the air, squealing, and landed with a splash. She came up sputtering in mock anger, shaking her finger at Jed McClatchey, who stood laughing in the shallow end. In the way he laughed, turned away, Marcella saw that he was being nice, had perhaps been instructed by his parents to entertain the kiddies. As if to confirm this she saw him next pick up a much younger child, six-year-old Sam Daugherty, and toss him after Toni, as Sam howled with delight. Marcella watched Jed’s arms, how easily he lifted the boy. She watched the muscles shifting along his back. He was eighteen or nineteen, she guessed. How perfect young men were, once they had come out the other end of the gawky phase, once their skin had cleared and their noses matched the rest of their faces. She remembered the boys she had known in high school, how uninterested she had been, waiting for a man. That was what she had thought about Anthony, immediately: he was a man. She had not thought any words like strict or humorless or harsh. She had seen only that he was sure of himself, he had been raised to have no doubts about who he was and what he would do in life, and when he seemed to expect her to be in love with him as he was with her it had made sense, she could think of no objections. She had been relieved, dazzled, even, to ride the wave of someone else’s surety.
Jed McClatchey had a hint of the young Anthony about him—he was dark, unlike his sister, and his body was compact and chiseled. There was something a bit sharp about his handsome face. He did not seem to have Cecil’s easefulness. Instead he was slightly cocky, also like Anthony—but underneath, she sensed, imagined, that this young man was an observer, that he harbored doubts about life, that he guarded a tender heart. Something like Marcella herself.
It would be like this to have a son. Odd and wonderful to look for one’s own qualities in a child of the opposite sex, to see them transformed. There was a reason, wasn’t there, that a son and a daughter comprised the perfect family? Another reason, too, to envy Betsy McClatchey. Except that she was tired of envy. It did no good, it accomplished nothing. Neither did longing; neither did hope.
Just then Jed looked up, straight at her. Their glances tangled and she knew she was staring, as if at a picture, and at the same time offering a picture of herself. Here I am. Please see me. She felt, for a moment, both naked and completely unselfconscious. Then Jed looked away and it was as though it had never happened; she could not say for sure that she hadn’t imagined his dark eyes piercing her. She looked down at herself again, her striped bathing suit, her hands lying quiescent on either hip, and felt more real, more solid. She flexed her feet and thought, That is me. She sat up and swung her feet to the ground. The me who is going home.
ANTHONY SAW HIS WIFE plant her feet on the flagstones so purposefully. He was glad to see any sign of determination from her, after the past few days. He was not much of an observer—they both knew that; but just now he had seen her thoughtful hands on her stomach. Of course he had. Of course he had wanted the baby, just as he had told her. Long ago, however, even before this pregnancy, he had quit picturing him, his son. Pictures in one’s head were not reality.
He took another sip of his mint julep. Silly drink but he had to admit that Cecil McClatchey hadn’t skimped on the bourbon, even though he had gummed it up with sugar; and he hadn’t used some crap brand either; he saw the bottle right there on the bar. With someone else Anthony might have thought he was showing off, but with Cecil he had the sense that he just knew how to do things right. The whole family had that effortless air about them.
By all rights, he and Cecil McClatchey should have been good pals, as much as Anthony was pals with anyone. He could tell that they had been raised the same way, with Southern and Northern variations—that they had both been expected to be smart, polite, and well groomed; conservative, but canny risk takers when it came to money; good at sports, particularly tennis, since it was practical and lifelong, but also team players; early risers, moderate drinkers, regular but not overly inspired churchgoers; and loyal, but realistic, friends, fathers, and husbands. Despite all this, he had never found much to say to Cecil. He sensed something soft in him. Rotten, even. Although surely that was too strong a word.
Betsy, though. He had always admired her and had the sense that she approved of him. She was sitting over there with her daughter, at the edge of the pool, her flowered dress hiked up around her knees. It could even be that she’d stuck her legs in the water to try to make Marcella feel better for being the only woman actually wearing a bathing suit. Not that Anthony hadn’t noticed other men noticing his wife; not that she wasn’t beautiful. And not of course that she was displaying herself on purpose, because he knew she never thought that way (odd because she so easily could have); still, it was an embarrassment. Marcella was his and he was sure other men envied him, but what if he had had a wife like Betsy McClatchey, who could always be counted on to do the right thing, a wife who maybe did not provoke covetousness or desire but neither looked at her husband—of this Anthony was sure—waiting for something unnamed that he couldn’t give?
Did she? Did sturdy, matter-of-fact Betsy McClatchey have passions and yearnings? Of course she did, everyone did—and for a moment he imagined her alone, not in that dress she was wearing, and not asking him for something but rather giving—
God. What was wrong with him? He took a sickly-sweet gulp of his drink.
Marcella had gotten up from her chair, he saw, and put her dress back on. Good. Maybe she wanted to leave; that was fine with him. He would much rather be at the courts, as he was most Sundays, than at a party. Although no one else had left yet, and Toni would want to stay, he was sure.
“Hello, Anthony.” He started. Betsy was right there beside him. He hadn’t even seen her get up from the pool. He shuddered at the idea that his crazy thoughts would be visible on his face, but she didn’t seem to have noticed anything. “I’ve been watching Toni. She’s practically grown. Such a beautiful girl,” she was saying, with the direct, slightly effusive admiration that he thought of as particularly Southern.
Nevertheless he felt a real smile come to his face. “That’s kind of you to say.” He cleared his throat. “Wonderful party, Betsy.”
“Well, we’re so glad you’re here.” She glanced across the patio, and then looked back at him frankly. “Is Marcella all right?”
“Yes, yes. She’s fine. A little under the weather.” He gazed out at the pool, as if he were looking for Toni. Took another sip of his drink. That was all he needed to say, all he should say, but Betsy let the pause hang, as if she knew he was deciding. “Had a bit of a disappointment recently,” he said. “That is, we did.”
It took her only a second. “I’m so sorry.”
He wasn’t sure how he had known she would understand. He looked down; she was looking straight back at him. Her eyes were a clear, forthright blue. “Of course please don’t say anyth
ing—”
“Of course not.” Her hand was on his arm. There was a pause, full of feeling. “I had wondered.”
He stiffened with surprise. Normally he would have been offended at such an offhand confession of prying thoughts. It was not the sort of thing one admitted to. But he found he didn’t care. “Wondered?”
“I have thought sometimes that it seemed like you were waiting for something. Both of you.” Her eyes held his. Her hand was still on his arm. She patted it and let go. He wished she would not be maternal. That he knew her better. That she would keep talking.
He imagined how her life was with Cecil, well ordered, legible. How there would never be sentences left uncompleted, or unmet desires darkening the air, or baffling, impenetrable dead ends ruining straight, clear paths.
He thought of Marcella in the bed on Saturday afternoon. Of how he had not even touched her. Not even squeezed her shoulder or stroked her hair. He thought Betsy would understand if he told her that what he had really wanted to do was lie down, wrap himself around Marcella, consume her. To peel himself back and show her all the mess of his wrecked hope. He thought that, if he asked, Betsy might be able to tell him why he hadn’t done this at all.
But she was looking beyond him now, her face changing, welcoming, and then Anthony felt a different touch on his arm, glancing as a bird’s wing. “Betsy, I am so sorry,” Marcella said, in her soft, musical voice. “I must go.”
There was the briefest of pauses and then Betsy said, “You are a doll for coming. I was just telling Anthony how lovely Toni is. Lovely.” There was a ringing tone in her words that was a message to Anthony: of course, she wouldn’t reveal his confidence. She would reveal nothing. And neither would he.
He looked down at Marcella. There were circles under her eyes, and thoughts and regrets be damned, all at once he wanted to stroke them, like gray velvet, he wanted to smooth them away, his touch melting into her cheek, all of him sinking into her. But he kept his hand at his side. “Let’s get you home,” he said. He meant to sound kind, but it came out brusque. Marcella turned away. She looked sad and, worse, unsurprised. God, he was helpless to change himself; he did not know what to do with her sadness. He hadn’t learned, in all this time, and she hadn’t taught him. Of all the things he hated, he hated feeling helpless the most. He wanted to tell Betsy this too.