Appearances

by Sondra Helene

  Stuart smiles and takes my hand, appraising. “Goddamn,” he says. His hair has grayed, and he’s gained a few pounds since I last saw him, but he’s tan, still fit and muscular. When we broke up, he was just a boy, and now he’s a rich, powerful man.

  A model-thin hostess who teeters in stilettos seats us at a prime table. Without missing a beat, our server appears, holding two bottles of water. “Sparkling or still?” He has an accent that reminds me of Dr. Varghas.

  “Sparkling,” Stuart says, and flashes a coy smile. “Unless you prefer Boston tap?” How worldly he appears now, so much more sophisticated than in college.

  “You look wonderful,” I say. On his wrist I notice a Cartier watch with a black alligator band. It suits him.

  “You look exactly the same. You don’t age,” he says.

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” I say, laughing, sitting taller in my chair. Although my hair is the same length, it used to be dark brown. Now it’s layered, side-parted, and auburn. I’m still slim, but I don’t weigh 110 pounds, like I did in college.

  Stuart takes my hand from across the table, and his fingers travel. “I’ve always loved your arms,” he says. He used to tell me that in college—I guess because they’re toned but still feminine, and not overly muscular.

  Anyone watching us might think Stuart is coming on strong, but to me our instant intimacy honors the strong bond we shared when we were young. Stuart has always been a natural salesman. What he’s doing is the sell, and I’m buying. Who knows what Elizabeth has told him about the state of things between Richard and me? In college, Stuart and I were completely enamored with each other. Then again, we were young. But I’m already feeling torn between the possibility of our mutual attraction and a second chance to mend my marriage.

  The server takes our order.

  “You’re having the sole,” Stuart says, before I can open my mouth. “Always watching what you eat, like in college.”

  “You know me,” I say, flattered.

  “My girlfriend will have the Dover sole, and I will have the sea bass, please,” Stuart says proudly, handing over our menus. His words transport me back twenty-five years, to when we had our innocence. Like a best friend whom you haven’t seen in a while, Stuart feels like home to me. Then again, life is completely different now. I wonder if it would be foolish to sacrifice a real future with Richard for nostalgia. But do I really have a future with Richard?

  “How are your parents?” Stuart asks. “They were good to me.”

  “My parents adored you.”

  “They must be heartsick about Elizabeth. I can’t even imagine—how they are coping? And you? I know how close you two are.”

  My face flushes. I reach for my water glass and wish I had something stiffer. Stuart’s eyes pierce mine. As if he has read my needs, he flags the server.

  “This lovely lady and I would like to split a bottle of the Sancerre,” he says.

  “Elizabeth is really sick. The cancer’s in her brain,” I continue when the wine has been poured. “Some days she’s coherent, some not. Today was a good day. She was excited that I was meeting you for dinner. She sends her love.”

  “She sounded different on the phone. But she recognized me,” Stuart says, with that sincere voice that I remember—a voice filled with kindness.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” I admit, ripping a piece of crust from the bread.

  “I’m so sorry,” Stuart says, and looks me in the eyes.

  “Thank you. Me, too.”

  “Remember our dinners in Ithaca? Ragmann’s?” he asks.

  “We always ate in style,” I say. “You always found a way. How’s business?”

  “An empire of fifteen nursing homes in greater New York!” he says, chuckling. “I guess I’ve known how to make money ever since I was a kid.”

  For the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, my parents entrusted me to Stuart. We drove up on a whim, no hotel, no tickets. But even after an eight-hour drive, Stuart was savvy enough to buy scalped tickets, then sell those at a profit to get better seats, and still have enough left over for a delicious French dinner and a decent motel room.

  “What happened between you and your wife?” I ask.

  Stuart’s smile fades for a beat, then reappears.

  “It’s a long story.” He explains that when they had financial difficulties with his business, she blamed him and spent money they didn’t have, which he resented. “Now that I’m back on my feet, I’m having trouble forgiving her.” I find myself wondering what really happened. There are three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth.

  “What happened with your business?” I ask.

  “I don’t know if you understand my type of business. I overleveraged,” he pauses. “But I pulled through.”

  Stuart and I belonged to each other in our youth, but it’s beginning to sink in that now he’s a married man with two daughters and responsibilities, a life as complicated and emotionally potholed as mine.

  “Are you planning to divorce?” I ask. “Do you want to get divorced?”

  Stuart takes a sip of water and clears his throat. I think I might have overstepped—he couldn’t know that I’m asking myself the same question. But then Stuart leans across the table and takes my hand. Our eyes lock.

  “Do you want to get divorced?” I realize that Elizabeth has told him everything.

  When I don’t answer, Stuart looks at his plate and says, “I’ve had a tough marriage. Our time together in college, Sam— we cut it way too short.”

  “I feel the same way,” I say, then scold myself a little for saying the truth out loud. Our relationship came so easily. We took care of each other. He took me to my first Broadway show, The Divine Miss M. Comforted me when I got a C in Biology. I learned to like basketball because he did. I consoled him when his grandfather died. Could we have sustained those early connections for a lifetime?

  “We had a lot of fun,” I say. “Life was a lot less complicated then—”

  “Damn right it was! I admit I’m struggling with the idea of getting a divorce. Sure, it works for my wife and me, but does it work for my family? We have two beautiful daughters. They love their mother. They can’t see that she’s a real pain in the ass.” Stuart laughs. “And we don’t have good chemistry in bed.”

  When we broke up at twenty-one, it was because I wanted to experience dating. Then, when I heard Stuart was getting married, I was filled with jealousy and regret. He was my first love, the first guy I slept with. I never contacted him to tell him my feelings, and now I think I should have. On the other hand, had we stayed together—had I never had these other experiences—I might have lived with a different kind of regret.

  “I worked twenty-four-seven to build my business. I’m never giving her half,” Stuart rants.

  “Husbands don’t usually build a business alone,” I say, a little ticked off at the men of my generation. As if Stuart’s wife hasn’t run his household and raised his kids, all while helping him to succeed. Divorce brings out the worst in people.

  “What about you, Sam? Your husband is a legend in private equity.”

  “He’s done well.”

  “Elizabeth tells me you’re separated.”

  “You know a lot,” I say. I love how easy our communication is, how direct we are. I’m not like this with Richard. Sometimes not even with Elizabeth.

  “We’ve both hurt and disappointed each other,” I confide in Stuart. “There’s been a lot of ugliness. Things are calmer now with us living apart. I’m not pressuring myself to decide what should happen between us. For the moment, I’m focusing on Elizabeth.”

  “I’m just sick about your sister,” Stuart says. “I remember her when she first got her license.”

  Stuart’s sincerity makes my eyes brim. He takes my hand, tangling our fingers.

  “We should have gotten married,” he insists. At this moment, in the dim restaurant, it feels that way. But it’s twenty-five years after we ended our relation
ship, and we’re sifting through a handful of “should haves” and “could haves.” If our love was so strong and a partnership possible, why didn’t we contact each other before this?

  I extract my hand, reach for my wine, and finger the rim of my glass.

  Dinner arrives. Between bites and sips, we catch each other up on the less intense aspects of the past two decades. College friends, our children, our favorite vacation spots. We bond over a love of Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Richard and I swore we would return but never did. I find myself imagining what that vacation would have been like with Stuart.

  Stuart says his mother has Alzheimer’s, and I am quiet with remorse. “I have a qualified nursing staff,” he says into his plate. “At least she’ll get good care.”

  Once the meal is cleared and we’re polishing off our wine, Stuart leans across the table and kisses me drily on the lips. “I’m staying at the Lenox,” he says. “Come back with me.” I want to think he’s joking, but Stuart’s eyes hold mine, completely serious. The aggressive and idealistic boy I knew has hardened into a man of authority, substantial and without self-doubt.

  I hesitate. I honestly would love to follow Stuart to his hotel room, but I feel I shouldn’t. We are both still married to other people. Through all these years of conflict and heartache with Richard, I remain loyal to my husband. The thought of sleeping with Stuart makes me feel guilty. Could the seed of that guilt be the new blossom of my love?

  “Who loves you more than I do?” Stuart insists. “No one ever will—you were my first.” But he isn’t saying that he wants a divorce.

  “I don’t want my time with you to end,” I say, limiting myself to what’s true.

  “Who says it has to?”

  I have enjoyed our meal so much, and it feels nice to be understood. I decide that extending the evening doesn’t have to mean ending up in bed.

  Soon we are in a cab. The Lenox is only five minutes away on Boylston Street. As romantic as I felt sitting across from Stuart at Mistral is as anxious as I now feel seated next to him in this taxi. I cast around for the courage to call it off. I haven’t kissed another man for almost twenty years—not since Richard and I had our second date. As we walk into the lobby, my head spins, both from the wine and from being in a hotel with my college boyfriend, who is now a man.

  Stuart leads me into the elevator and presses 6. The doors close, and he kisses me softly. I kiss back, remembering these lips, these hands, struggling to compare what I’m experiencing now with Stuart’s relative youth and inexperience. The doors open with a ding, and he leads me to his room. I follow him down the hall, needing to silence my phone but not wanting to see a missed call from Richard.

  Before the door in Stuart’s room even closes, he has his hands in my hair. Then, in one dizzying motion, I’m lying on the bed on my back and Stuart is removing my Jimmy Choos.

  We kiss furiously, like we used to in his dorm room, rumpling the hotel linens. With Stuart’s hands on me, I give in to the pleasure of feeling attractive and wanted.

  Stuart moves his focus to my waist and hips—he fidgets with the button on my pants—and though part of me craves this and wants him to go further, a bigger part of me feels I can’t.

  “Stuart,” I whisper, pushing his hands away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking up, confused. I can feel his heart beating on my thighs through the walls of his rib cage.

  “I’m still married.”

  “So am I,” he says, relieved, and goes back to the button. I can’t help but think he looks sweaty and handsome, his mouth smeared slightly pink from my lipstick.

  “I didn’t mean to lead you on,” I say, and sit up.

  “Come on,” he says, with noticeable frustration. “We’re not doing anything wrong. For all you know, Richard is with another woman tonight.”

  These words hit me like a slap. The truth is, I don’t know what Richard does when we aren’t together, except when someone tells me they saw him at a bar. But being here doesn’t feel right to me. It feels secretive and deceitful. I have too much respect for Richard, I realize, to sleep with Stuart, and too much hope that we might work it out.

  “I’m not ready for this,” I say, resenting Stuart’s mention of Richard. Perhaps sensing that he crossed a line, he resumes being the gentleman I know. Stuart hands me my heels and puts on his own shoes, too.

  “I’ll come down and put you in a cab,” he says.

  “No, thanks,” I say. I straighten my blouse and fix my hair in the mirror before I open the door.

  “This isn’t over yet, Sam,” Stuart says, as he kisses my cheek. “Keep in touch. I want you.”

  On the cab ride home, I wonder if Stuart and I actually will keep in touch, if a relationship that’s not sexual would even hold his interest. But I also can’t help but wonder if Richard will end up deserving the loyalty I showed him tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hospice nurses don’t wear uniforms. We do not mention death. We purchase a Craftmatic adjustable mattress but keep the same sumptuous bedding: eight-hundred-thread- count sheets, silky throws, and plush pillows. Everything as “normal” as it can possibly be.

  My sister’s hearing worsens. She’s deaf in her left ear and mostly deaf in her right. Jake pours himself into his work. He jogs fifteen miles a day for the marathon and disappears to business dinners at night.

  One afternoon when I enter the Gordons’, I see dozens of men’s pants, shirts, sweaters, belts, and shoes strewn in the living room, as if a men’s clothing boutique has popped up in their home. Jake is standing in the middle of it all with a spiffy young man.

  “Starting a business?” I ask.

  “Saks brought me their spring line,” Jake says, and the salesman smiles.

  Although I’ve always been a fashion fanatic, I am horrified by this lavish display. Jake sifts through piles of stiff-collared designer shirts. Elizabeth is in bed upstairs without the energy to dress, and Jake is buying a new spring wardrobe.

  “How would it look, me on a shopping spree?” Jake asks.

  “Alberto brought me the store. There’s a solution to every problem is what I say. See what they’ll do for a good customer?” Jake says, trying on a lightweight cashmere jacket. “What do you think? Slimming?”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  “What’s wrong?” He laughs nervously. “I’ve been running a lot. It fits.”

  “Does Elizabeth know what you’re doing?”

  “It’s no secret. I’m not keeping it from her.”

  “I hope you don’t go up and model,” I say.

  “I have another business dinner tonight,” he says. “I need to feel productive.”

  Alberto has grown solemn and quiet, like he no longer wants to be here and would be happy to abandon these expensive clothes.

  “You and I should go out one night,” Jake says. “It will do you good, Samantha.”

  “I can’t,” I say, and rush upstairs. I am frustrated with Jake for not hanging on until the end, which is clearly not far off, but I know how much he loves my sister.

  Kathy, one of Elizabeth’s nurses, finds me on the staircase. An attractive redhead around fifty, she has a comforting presence. Kathy is efficient and self-assured, the type of person I gravitate to. In another situation, she might have been a friend.

  “I need to speak to you privately,” Kathy says.

  She takes me into the office Elizabeth used to use, next to her bedroom, where she still keeps her computer and household bills.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “I know this is hard. But I think it would be beneficial for to you have an honest conversation with Elizabeth about dying. She may want to say goodbye,” Kathy says. “I’ve been control ling her morphine, but she’s in a lot of pain.” We’re seated on floor cushions. Kathy places her hand gently on my thigh.

  I bow my head and rub my fingers through my hair as the nurse continues. I hear but don’t listen, cycling my own obsess
ive thoughts about Elizabeth’s dying, all of my neurotic fictions that will soon be fact. In this moment I remember a friend who purchases World Series tickets on the field, charters private jets, and can buy his way into any trendy restaurant. When his wife died of ovarian cancer a few years ago, he wailed about how he could do or buy anything except what would save her. Elizabeth, too, has had access to the best doctors at the world’s best hospitals, and she will still die young. I panic, wondering how I will survive without her.

  I know that speaking frankly to Elizabeth is the right thing to do, but I’m terrified. It makes me realize how even the conversations we have shared over the years, those interactions I consider the most authentic and meaningful in my life, have sometimes been conducted under a superficial veil.

  “I’m going to summon my strength,” I tell Kathy. I must find the right time to tell Elizabeth that I will miss her, to assure her what a wonderful wife, mother, sister, and daughter she is, and soon. To duck this responsibility, to indulge my own fear and comfort craving, would be nothing short of selfish.

  “Elizabeth might be waiting for this,” Kathy says.

  I leave Kathy and sit on the edge of my sister’s bed while she sleeps.

  Later, Jane comes by with markers and several dry-erase boards to help us all communicate better. I wish I had thought of this.

  “What are these?” Elizabeth asks when we install them.

  “Like a blackboard,” Jane says loudly. “Now we can write you messages.”

  “Watch,” I say, as I write in glossy letters, “What did you eat?”

  Elizabeth smiles. “Scrambled eggs.”

  “I love you,” I write, which draws another sweet smile. Her face looks lately like it did when she was a baby-hair cropped, pink cheeks, and big blue eyes, open and naive. She watches television with closed captioning and flips through People magazine. I’m not sure if she understands words anymore when they are lumped together in long sentences. People is good: glossy, colorful pictures with big, readable headlines. The prognosis was three months when Elizabeth was diagnosed with leptomeningeal disease. Already we have doubled that time, but Elizabeth doesn’t turn her head now when people enter the room.