Appearances

by Sondra Helene

  Jake had matured into a striking presence at six feet, with dark hair and angular brows. One evening, out of the blue, Elizabeth and Jake sat side by side on a Green Line subway train, and they soon became inseparable. They kept separate apartments after graduating from college, of course, but they were already a single unit in every other way. My family valued this type of bond, and I knew Elizabeth was lucky to have found someone like Jake. There I was, turning twenty-six, then twenty-seven, and, despite the men circling, starting to doubt I’d ever find the one.

  One night when I was still at Charles River Park, I had the flu and Elizabeth and Jake stopped by with chicken soup. Elizabeth had already checked in on me during the day, taking quick breaks from work. When the lovebirds entered that evening, I was sitting on my bed cross-legged, four pillows propping my head, with a runny nose.

  “Thanks,” I said, accepting the soup but waving them away. “Don’t get too close.”

  “Hope it makes you feel a little better,” Elizabeth said, curling her lower lip onto her teeth in the funny way that she did. She wore black leather pants with a white cashmere sweater. Night makeup announced her eyes.

  “Smells yummy,” I said, then covered my mouth to cough.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” Elizabeth said. “We’re going for a bite.” She took Jake’s hand to lead him out, but Jake pulled my sister back and turned her to face me.

  “Today’s our anniversary!” Jake said with a toothy smile. “That makes exactly four years.” They embraced. I tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t turn up at the corners.

  “That’s great,” I said flatly, not even attempting to muster any excitement. I hoped they mistook my listlessness for flu symptoms. I knew I was being petty, but every little touch or glance between Elizabeth and Jake that night seemed amplified and made me want to squeeze my eyes shut. Once they left, I could barely touch the soup.

  The next morning, I called my grandmother, who took an active interest in my love life. I admitted that I felt jealous that Elizabeth had a serious boyfriend and I didn’t.

  “Mamala,” my bubbe said. “Don’t worry, you’re a catch. You’ll find someone who’s right for you. Don’t think so much.”

  Bubbe, originally from Lithuania, always listened openly before she doled out advice. She eternally wore a pair of fourteen-karat gold hoops and three solid-gold chains. She was fifty pounds overweight, wise, and compassionate. Aside from my girlfriends, with whom I gushed about superficial things, Bubbe was my confidante.

  I would say to her, “I don’t like the way that guy dresses. He didn’t open the car door for me.” Or, “He didn’t care about my feelings when I told him I was upset.”

  “He’s not for you, mamala,” Bubbe would say. “Who needs someone like that?”

  I often fretted to Bubbe that I should have married my college boyfriend Stuart, worrying that no one would ever love me as much. I tried to explain my regret, but words fell short. “He brushed the snow off my car,” I said to Bubbe. “He bought me NyQuil when I was sick.” What I didn’t describe to my grandmother was how gently Stuart had toweled the water from every part of my body after we showered.

  Now I wished I had given Stuart a chance when we graduated from college. But I had been too immature, grasping for someone to fulfill a dream.

  I MET RICHARD at the bar at St. Cloud, a restaurant in Boston’s brick-lined South End. He had just turned forty and held his vodka with a financier’s confidence and well-manicured hands. His clothes were tailored, French cuffs secured with RAFmonogrammed links. He was eloquent despite a slight Boston accent, dropping his r’s at the end of some words. I figured out only later what made Richard so damn handsome in the evenings, with that irresistible glow: he had always just come from playing squash.

  Throughout our courtship, Richard took a gentleman’s pains. He pulled out my chair and, as he became acquainted with my tastes, suggested food and wine if he knew the restaurant well. When I play it all back in my mind, I remember how his eyes sought me when he spoke, fringed with the eyelashes women dream of. Although he seemed a little old for me, the chemistry was there, and something more: beckoning from under Richard’s polish and shine, some secret intrigued me and kept me interested. Even after Richard confessed that he was divorced and had a six-year-old son, Harrison, what I saw in him was someone who I could trust and rely on.

  I never hid my closeness with my family from Richard. I never thought I had to. Until the first night he accompanied me back to my apartment at Charles River Park. We had just walked through the door, and the phone rang, eleven at night. Richard looked at me, eyes narrowing. “Aren’t you going to get that?” he asked.

  “Of course.” I picked up the phone. It was my sister calling to say a cheery late-night hello. She and I had gotten in the habit of talking whenever I got home late. If I didn’t call, she called me. With Richard looking on, I said quietly, “I have a date.”

  “Who’s calling you at this hour?” Richard asked, standing so close that he himself could have heard what Elizabeth said.

  “My sister,” I said. I didn’t bother to cover the receiver with my hand. I knew that Elizabeth, too, could hear every word.

  “Your sister?” Richard asked. “ Cut it out. I don’t like teasing.”

  “Here, say hi to Richard,” I said, with a nervous giggle. “He thinks you’re a guy.”

  “Put him on,” Elizabeth said, laughing, unaware of the tension at my end.

  I passed Richard the phone. “Hello?” he said tentatively.

  “Samantha told me so much about you,” I heard Elizabeth say through the receiver. I took a deep breath and shook out the hand I’d used to grip the phone, not realizing how tense I’d become. I rubbed my ear.

  For a couple of minutes, I tried to relax while I listened to Richard and my sister make small talk about how he had once been to the beach in our North Shore neighborhood and the proximity of their offices in the financial district.

  When Richard hung up, he asked, “Does she always call you this late?”

  “Yes, we talk like this all the time. We’re sisters,” I said, thinking that one statement explained it all.

  I came to know Richard as a tenacious and worldly man whose aptitude for risk taking allowed his private equity business to thrive. Savvy, charming, and willful, he exuded my favorite qualities, some of which I believed I could improve in myself through mere proximity to him.

  “Is there anything else I should know about you?” I asked my future husband one night over our hundredth glass of wine.

  “I’m very stubborn,” he said to me, the future Mrs. Freeman.

  We dated for three years.

  Richard was resourceful and persistent, the type of man who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted. His power and success excited me. I felt confident steering the waters of my own family, but here was a man who exerted force over people in the world.

  By the time Richard and I got serious, in my late twenties, my friends were already years into their marriages, and I had the rack of satin, pouf-sleeved bridesmaid gowns to prove it.

  AFTER GRADUATING WITH my master’s degree and moving to Charles River Park, I landed one of five speech-language pathology positions at Beth Israel Hospital. I loved my job. It felt special and rare to have made a career out of nurturing others, which came naturally to me. My small therapy office had a wooden desk, a window, a filing cabinet, and room enough for a wheelchair. I hung my college diploma and, above that, my newest accreditation credential, which together covered the available wall.

  My first patient most mornings was Barbara, seventy-four, whose stroke had affected her right side. Barbara’s right arm and leg were weak, inhibiting her ability to walk or grasp a fork. Her speech was slow and halting. She had difficulty finding the words she wanted to say, as if they were on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t get them out. I knew she wanted to show off her six grandchildren to me, four boys and two girls ranging in age from nine to three, wh
ose pictures she slid into and out of her bathrobe’s left pocket. She cried in frustration. I explained that it was all normal, that with practice she would improve. My goal was to help Barbara recover, from deep inside the speech center of her brain, the words that seemed lost. Barbara’s husband visited her every day after work. I wanted him to see her progress.

  Feeling professional in my white coat, one morning I wheeled Barbara into my office and set the brake. A beige thermal hospital blanket covered her bedpost legs. My patient’s hair was so thin that I could see through to parts of her scalp; my big ’80s hair, wavy and thick, cut a ridiculous contrast. I noticed Barbara’s wedding band sliding from her finger, and, with her permission, I moved the band onto the gold necklace she wore, feeling the foolishness of my youthful abundance. Barbara would possibly never stand from her wheelchair, never again speak fluently. We had work to do.

  “Did you have breakfast this morning?” I asked Barbara, taking her cold hands in mine. Whenever she smiled, I could see the weakness on the right side of her face. We began with word associations. I pointed to a picture of breakfast pastries, including doughnuts, croissants, and muffins and, slowly, enunciating each word, I said, “I am going to eat a blueberry . . .”

  “Muffin,” Barbara said, finishing my sentence with a hint of pride.

  “I am going to eat a blueberry muffin,” I repeated, beaming at her.

  “Blueberry muffin,” she repeated.

  “Bread and . . .”

  “Butter,” Barbara said.

  “Yes! Excellent.” Then I tried to work on opposite meanings with her.

  “Black,” I said.

  “White,” Barbara replied.

  “Yes! White is black’s opposite. Now, try happy.”

  “Sad.” That was an easy one. As we worked, Barbara’s face evoked defiance, not depression. She seemed determined to recover the living she wanted to do and had already made improvement since her initial evaluation. I had every hope that, with enough cues and practice, we could break through and Barbara’s speech would improve.

  “Stop,” I said, working down my list.

  “Go,” Barbara said.

  “Young.”

  “Old.”

  “Married,” I said.

  This one stumped her. “Not married,” she tried.

  “What word means not married?”

  “Divorced?”

  “Yes, and”—I felt unusually impatient—“what word means never married?” I perched on the edge of my seat.

  Barbara shook her head.

  “Single,” I said, and leaned back in my chair.

  “Single,” Barbara repeated. Then, pointing her index finger at me, her voice rising to a question, she asked, “Single?”

  I nodded.

  My patient grasped my hand and squeezed.

  THE WEATHER WAS remarkable for early March, sunny and seventy-five, the day in 1987 when I became Mrs. Freeman in a ceremony at the Ritz. I was only thirty, but I felt old. Elizabeth and Jake were already celebrating three years of marriage.

  The ceremony and reception would take place in the grand ballroom at seven, and the Presidential Suite would be ours after Richard and I kissed the last guests goodbye. At three o’clock, my sister arrived with the hairdresser and makeup artist. My eyes widened like a princess in a fairy tale as we entered the penthouse, overlooking the Boston Common and Public Garden, where Richard and I would spend our wedding night.

  I savored that private afternoon—drinking pink champagne, dressing in my lace-and-taffeta gown—with that view of the manicured shrubbery and colonial statuary, my mother Rachel and my Auntie Gloria, her sister, making bubbly, nervous visits, Elizabeth at my side.

  Our chuppah was adorned lushly with orchids, roses, and simple greens. A harpist strummed. Richard, dashing in black tie, walked the aisle, smiling ear to ear. My father, debonair in his tuxedo, held my arm, and I held a single white rose, with pure, unadulterated joy in my heart, a thin cloud of netting over my face.

  When we reached the chuppah, my father placed my hand in Richard’s and moved aside. In accordance with Jewish tradition, the cantor chanted a prayer and we sipped red wine from a goblet that had been my great-grandfather’s. Richard and I exchanged vows promising to love and cherish each other till death. He stepped on the glass, and when it shattered, the rabbi pronounced us man and wife. When Richard and I kissed, everyone applauded and shouted, “Mazel tov!” I felt warmth rise from deep inside me, as if the sun had replaced my heart, and thought naively that all the worries I had would disappear now that I was Mrs. Richard A. Freeman.

  After months lived in details—from the floor-length, pearl organza tablecloths to the orchid centerpieces that mimicked the chuppah to the pounds of votive candles on display—our wedding was a dream. We dined on rack of lamb with grilled asparagus and roasted potatoes and danced tenderly as husband and wife.

  “If I knew I could be this happy, I would have skipped my first wedding altogether,” Richard whispered in my ear.

  I waltzed with my father. Richard danced with my mother, then his sisters. I danced with the best man and the ushers. The celebratory energy of Auntie Gloria in her red beaded gown and exquisite diamond necklace, along with at least one hundred other relatives and friends, surged the dance floor. My joy overflowed.

  On a whim, Richard invited thirty or so spontaneous guests to our wedding suite for an after-party. A case of Yellow Label appeared, and the champagne flowed. We hadn’t discussed any such gathering, and I was surprised to have the intrusion on our wedding night, but I could see that Richard was proud of the suite and wanted to show it off. Shrugging off my annoyance, I indulged in the emotional high of my fairy-tale evening, placing an order for extra crystal flutes with the concierge.

  Champagne in hand—watching the twinkle of the Boston skyline through the penthouse window, and making small talk with someone I hardly knew—I suddenly realized who was missing. My sister. I straightened my spine and peered into the crowd. I didn’t see Elizabeth anywhere, or my brother, David. Richard’s two sisters were also absent. Why hadn’t he invited our siblings? My sister was my maid of honor. My brother was an usher. Richard’s brother-in-law was his best man. I excused myself.

  Richard was mid-conversation when I tapped him on the shoulder and handed him my glass. “Where are Elizabeth and David?” I asked, gathering my train and hurrying to the hallway, not even waiting for an answer. I needed to set this right. My family would be so hurt to know that Richard and I had extended our celebration without them.

  The elevator opened right away, but when I arrived in the ballroom, it no longer resembled a fairy tale. The lights were on, and the hotel staff were striking the room. I took the elevator back to my marital suite alone, avoiding my image in the mirrored doors.

  Our guests finally departed at two thirty. I paced, interrogating Richard, discarding pins from my updo. “How could you forget to invite Elizabeth and Jake? David and his girlfriend, Jill? Your sisters? They’re our family.”

  “Relax. I just didn’t think of it,” Richard said dismissively. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “But you thought of all those other people?”

  “Please. Now I’m only thinking of you.”

  The last thing I wanted was to argue on my wedding night. On the pretense of brushing my teeth, I escaped to the bathroom. I wanted to be that couple holding each other and whispering in the candlelight.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, I had taken off my dress.

  Chapter Three

  The night after the Pine Cliff fund-raiser, Richard and I go out for dinner alone. If there’s any spot in Boston where we can discuss our marital problems, it’s Abe&Louie’s, one of our places, a pillar in the life we’ve built together. Its mahogany-paneled dining room with deep leather booths represents a comfort and luxury that put us both at ease.

  Richard greets the maitre d’ with a rehearsed handshake. “Good to see you, Romeo,” he says, slipping him a twenty. My
husband wants to ensure that we’ll be seated near the windows at the front of the dining room, away from the kitchen and the commotion of its two-way doors.

  Romeo selects two menus and gestures for us to follow him to our favorite table, perfect for people-watching. “You’re looking well,” Romeo says to me as we walk, concealing the $20 bill in his cuff. “Have not seen you for a while, Madame Samantha,” he adds tentatively.

  “I’ve been well,” I say, and smile, though I feel myself wince. As Romeo seats us and engages Richard in small talk, I fidget with my wedding ring, taking it off, sliding it on. It stays on my finger this time. The scent of drawn butter, fresh black pepper, and roasted thyme in the restaurant has a pacifying effect.

  Romeo leaves us with leather-backed menus, and I look into the eyes of the man I’ve loved for twenty years, allowing myself to trace the soft folds of his jowl and the chiseled crease above his lips. He doesn’t believe that I appreciate him and all his success affords us, and I don’t feel valued by him as a mother and wife. Richard sits erect with his perfect posture, wearing his Nantucket tan, these unspoken accusations between us.

  “I like that blouse,” Richard says, alternating his eyes between the menu and me. “New?”

  “Yes, I just bought it at Saks.” I sit straighter—it’s easy to feel slouchy next to Richard. For this evening, I’ve worn a black lace top with dark skinny jeans and a pair of gold, backless heels. In my mid-forties, I know that how old we look depends on how well we take care of ourselves, and I keep myself in good shape.

  I take Richard’s hand on the tablecloth and draw his eyes from the menu because he already knows what he will order. We reach into the basket of warm bread that Romeo has placed without instruction, and, for a brief time, the conversation flows.