“So Tuesday’s my big day,” she said as Amanda pulled up a chair beside her. “Wine?”
“Sure, thanks.”
To one side of the terrace, the mottled blue surface of a rectangular pool sparkled invitingly; to the other was an elaborate jungle gym, partially hidden by a tall hedge. A slight breeze nudged the empty swings back and forth. The children were inside, watching television.
“You’re really going to go through with it?”
“Quit acting so shocked. You’ll be doing it, too, before you know it.”
Amanda’s sunglasses concealed her look of doubt. “How long will it take you to recover?”
“Not long—but I’ll be in hiding for about three weeks, until the bruising disappears. Then I plan to reemerge—like a butterfly from its chrysalis. You wait. You’ll be so jealous you’ll be begging me for the name of my plastic surgeon.”
Amanda smiled. “I may well need one. After Friday I don’t know that I actually want to show my real face around the school again.”
“So I heard.”
“You did? From who?”
“Austen told me Ben got in trouble and didn’t come back from the office. I was going to call you—then Kim phoned with the whole story.”
“How did she know?”
“She heard it from Ellen. Ellen’s on the rules committee, so she would be informed right away.”
“And she took it upon herself to inform everyone else?” Amanda was aghast.
“They take the peanut policy very seriously. It’s a warning to the whole school not to be careless.”
“And you agree with it?”
“Of course not. I think it’s ridiculous.” Christine lifted the bottle of wine from its plastic bucket to check how much was left—about half—and placed it back. “Cheer up, Amanda. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Everyone thinks it’s stupid. But it’s the rule.”
“Ben may have to leave because of it.”
“Really?” Amanda thought she detected more prurience than sympathy in Christine’s surprise.
“I might be wrong,” Amanda said, attempting to backpedal. “It’s just that Burley and Phelps and Dr. Koenig—well, they seemed so angry. I don’t know …”
“Oh, they can overreact. I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure, given your family connections, that Ben will be protected.”
Amanda’s eyes darted at Christine’s. Did Christine know? How did she know? Christine, like some private eye, was in the habit of asking dogged questions to which Amanda had always been deliberately vague in her answers. She had not discouraged Christine’s emerging theory that she was the estranged, bohemian child of a rich father. (What business was it of Christine’s, after all, that Amanda’s real father—whom she rarely heard from—was the bohemian? He had long ago given up practicing psychiatry in Manhattan and moved with his second family to a cottage in Maine.)
She could feel Christine scrutinizing her. “I don’t know what you mean,” Amanda replied evenly, keeping her gaze on the pool.
“Isn’t Phelps a good friend of your mother’s?”
“They were activists together in the seventies.”
“Uh-huh.” Christine apparently already knew this, and Amanda worried that she would push further. “The whole sisterhood thing. I think you’re safe.”
She poured more wine, and to Amanda’s relief the conversation seemed to have ended.
“Do you mind if I take a dip? I’m getting hot sitting here.”
“Go ahead.”
Amanda stripped down to her bathing suit and descended the half-moon steps, slowly immersing herself in the lukewarm water. Aware of Christine’s critical gaze upon her, Amanda duck-dived to the bottom, following the slope of the pool to its deepest point, and resurfacing at the far end. She pulled herself up on the edge and waved across to Christine, who was still watching her. Water trickled off her thighs and seeped into the sunbaked bluestone.
“It’s gorgeous,” Amanda called out. “You should come in.”
“I don’t really like swimming.”
Amanda toweled herself off and rejoined Christine.
“I’ve been thinking,” Christine said. “You should probably join a committee. It’s the best way of protecting Ben—Sophie, too. You’re going to need a good reference from the center if you want to send them to a really top elementary school. Where is Ben going to go, by the way? I’ve already sent in Austen’s forms to Beauvoir and Maret, although of course I hope he’ll eventually go to St. Alban’s.”
“But it’s still a year away!”
“You mean you haven’t applied anywhere yet?” Christine removed her sunglasses to underscore her astonishment.
“I hadn’t realized—” The truth was, Amanda had not yet figured out how Ben was going to avoid public school. It seemed pointless to start up with private schools where tuition began at fourteen thousand dollars a year.
“Oh, Amanda.” Christine seemed truly anxious on her behalf. “Laura Crabbe actually took a job at Beauvoir—in the library, part time—to improve Sam’s chances at getting in.”
“I don’t know—”
“You must apply for a committee—right away. The auction committee is pretty easy to get on—I’m on that one—and they like people who raise money for the school.”
Amanda stared down at her wavy, unvarnished toenails. (She had declined Christine’s invitation to join her for a pedicure.)
“I don’t know that I’d be very good at that.”
“Sure you would. It’s easy. Besides, you’re creative, and a lot of the work is planning the items to be auctioned. Trips and that sort of thing.”
“How does one get on a committee?” Amanda asked reluctantly.
“Depends. How much money did you give to the school last year?” Christine was staring at her intently now, the private eye about to expose the false alibi.
“Um, probably not enough.”
“I’ll look into it if you like. Recommend you to Phelps. Not that you need my recommendation—” Christine raised an eyebrow.
“Thanks. Let me think about it.”
On Monday Amanda arrived at the school deliberately late for noon dismissal. She had planned to fly into the front hall, grab Sophie, and fly out again, praying she would not bump into anyone she knew. But as Amanda raced up the steps, there, leaning against one of the columns of the veranda, was Alan. Amanda could not pass by him without at least nodding hello.
“Hey, Alan.”
“Hey, Amanda.” As she rushed on, he said, “You’re late today. I was looking for you.”
Amanda whirled around. She was running against the tide of dismissal, and her abrupt stop created a bottleneck of children and mothers.
“Why?” Had word about Ben trickled down to Alan?
He eased his way to her, using the stroller to create a path, and guided them both out of the way of the doors.
“I just wanted to let you know I can get you tickets to the opening of my play—it’s starting its run at the end of the month.”
“Oh. Great.”
“How many tickets will you need?”
“Gee—I’m not sure—”
“Do you think Bob will want to come?”
Distracted, Amanda scanned the stream of children, concerned that Sophie might pass by without seeing her.
“Bob? No.”
Alan seemed affronted by her bluntness.
“I mean, he’s pretty busy with the Megabyte case,” she explained quickly. “He’s not going out to anything these days. But I would love to come, sure.”
Alan looked pleased. “Good. I’ll arrange it and give you the exact date.”
“Okay.” She made a move to leave but Alan stopped her again.
“I heard about Ben,” he said. “Outrageous.”
Amanda wilted slightly; so it was everywhere. Alan perceived her dismay and grasped her shoulder.
“Amanda, I didn’t tell you to upset you. I just wanted to let you know I’m on you
r side. Anything I can do to help …” His eyes sought hers.
“Thanks, Alan. I really appreciate it.”
She hugged him lightly, and he hugged her back.
“Remember—it’s hard being outside the box,” he said, giving her an extra squeeze. His arms felt thin and ropy yet strong, like tough cords; not soft and enveloping like Bob’s.
“Better find Sophie,” Amanda murmured, pulling away.
All that afternoon, Amanda thought about Alan. At first he came to her in glimpses—his solicitous words, the touch of his hand, the kind expression of his eyes. She was grateful to him, she really was. He was the only other parent at the school with whom she felt she could be honest, herself. She even thought about phoning him at home, to seek out his advice further on what to do about the situation with Ben. Should she join a committee? What would Alan say to that? (Don’t let them force you into the box.)
But as she flipped through the school directory, seeking his number, other thoughts began intruding themselves, thoughts that caused Amanda to pause. Did she seriously want Alan’s advice—or was she calling him for another reason? Her conscience resisted the idea that there could be anything wrong in making this call—hadn’t she phoned him many times to arrange play dates?—but the more it resisted, the more strongly the other thoughts rallied for her attention. She shut the directory and put on the kettle and walked into the hallway to listen for Sophie, who was napping upstairs; all was silent, except for the gradual whine of the kettle.
What would it be like—with Alan?
The question posed itself starkly, as Amanda stirred her cup of tea. She continued stirring, almost hypnotically. The question, realizing it finally had the floor, posed itself again.
What would it be like?
She carried the cup to the table and sat down, the sight of the newspaper that she’d intended to read dissolving in the dam burst of images suddenly flooding her brain …
Minutes passed, until Amanda drew herself up, trying to snap out of the fantasy, but one image lingered, and she clung to it—the thought of the two of them atop a duvet twisted from passion, their hot bodies cooled by the manufactured breezes of an air conditioner. Where were they? In his bedroom. Yes—his bedroom, on a weekday morning. The thrill of it lay in the hour of the day, when the children were at school and the sun forced its way through the blinds no matter which way you angled them. The rest of the world was working while they traced the soft hair on each other’s bodies …
Stop it! Amanda told herself. This is ridiculous. I don’t want an affair!
What did she want then?
She got up and rinsed her cup in the sink. Christ, she thought, even my fantasies now accommodate my children’s schedules. And that was it, wasn’t it? Here’s what she wanted: she wanted an entire afternoon to pass without being asked to fetch a glass of juice. She wanted to lie in one morning, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. She wanted to make love without having to lock a door or wait until children were asleep, to make love without feeling there was something else she ought to be doing. The last time Amanda had felt so free was six years ago. She could chart it to the day. She and Bob had traveled to Rome for what turned out to be their last holiday without children. One morning they decided simply not to get out of bed. They made love, they napped, they read, they talked. Food arrived on silver trays, the sheets remained unmade; through the tall windows, they followed the arc of a Roman day. When they finally stepped out at nightfall, Amanda leaned on Bob’s arm, her limbs exhausted by pleasure. The young men had begun to crowd outside tables; passersby hurried home, packages clutched under their arms; here and there a shop remained open, selling highball glasses and key rings to the evening surge of tourists. Bob led her down cobbled alleyways and through squares with the confidence of a man who had mastered his new surroundings in less than a week. They ended up in a little restaurant where a waiter persuaded them to try raw fresh fava beans with olive oil and a scraping of pecorino. They drank cold red wine. It was impossible to feel any happier.
Amanda and Bob tried once to recapture this trip a few months after Sophie was born. Amanda’s mother volunteered to baby-sit the children over a winter weekend. Amanda and Bob didn’t go far—just a ninety-minute drive to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. They stayed at a bed-and-breakfast Amanda had read about in a travel magazine. Its charming description as an eighteenth-century whaler’s cottage turned out to be miserably apt: eighteenth-century whalers did not expect much in the way of comfort or privacy. Amanda and Bob were assigned a drafty attic room furnished with a spindly bed with noisy springs. The bathroom was across the hall. The owners of the house urged Amanda and Bob to join them by the fire in the gloomy parlor for “afternoon tea.” It was too bitterly cold to go outside, most of the nearby town was shut down, and she and Bob had not gone away to listen for hours to the innkeeping aspirations of their genial but relentless hosts. They left early Sunday morning—luckily so, as it turned out, since Amanda’s mother had decided after a hellish weekend of her own that she was “not the sort of grandmother to play mommy” and wouldn’t be offering her services again. When Amanda looked back on this disastrous little trip, she liked to think it might have gone otherwise—if only they had chosen a different inn, a different season—but she knew, really, that it couldn’t have gone otherwise. Had she and Bob been dropped into that hotel room in Rome again, there would not have been a moment in which she wasn’t waiting for the phone to ring, not a moment in which her children weren’t hovering near her conscience, banging to get in.
Thoughts of Alan continued to intrude upon her, despite her efforts to banish them; by the time Amanda readied herself for bed, she felt uneasy with desire—and the uneasiness of being desired. What was it that he had said to her?—“There’s fire in you, too.” His words played through her head as she fell asleep; she wasn’t dead, no, not yet, the embers glowed still …
Amanda was awakened by the noise of a drawer being closed. She had left a bedside lamp on for Bob, and its glare blinded her when she opened her eyes. It took her a moment or two to adjust to the light; Bob was sitting on a chair unrolling his socks from his feet.
“What time is it?”
“Close to midnight,” he answered. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s okay.” Amanda propped herself up on her pillow. “What time did you get in?”
“About half an hour ago. Thanks for leaving me some of that spaghetti.”
“I figured you might be hungry.”
“I was. Ravenous. Worked right through dinner again.”
Relations between Amanda and Bob had thawed to the point that they were speaking, but without intimacy, like two military officers exchanging situation reports at the end of a shift: “Anything happen?” “No, not much. You?” This was fine. Amanda was certainly not eager to tell him what had been on her mind for most of the day. She watched quietly as Bob put his clothes away, except for his blue suit, which he left out to wear again tomorrow.
The jacket looked as tired as she felt. It was hunched over the rack. There were creases in its arms, and the buttons had worn circles in the fabric. She remembered Bob’s complaint that he had not bought a new pair of shoes in two years. It struck her now that he had not bought a new suit, either. Her mind reeled back to another memory from their trip to Rome, when Bob had tried on a beautiful cashmere blazer. It was handmade by a tailor who fussed and pulled at the shoulders as Bob admired his reflection in the mirror. The tailor had gotten as far as making chalk marks on the seams before Bob decided against buying it. Amanda urged him to change his mind but, as he explained as they walked away from the store, while he could afford it, he could only just afford it, and they had much better uses for their money than blowing it on a blazer for him. A day later, in another shop, Amanda paraded before him in a pair of purple suede jeans. He insisted upon getting them for her even though they cost nearly as much as the blazer. She gave in, pleased, and wore them throughout
the rest of the trip. When they got home, she unpacked the pants lovingly, folded them over a hanger, and never wore them again.
Bob’s suit came back into focus; Amanda felt sickened by guilt. She rolled over and clutched his pillow, her fantasies chased away by the footsteps of Bob returning from the bathroom, the man who was not Alan. Why had she permitted herself to think about him so much?
Bob pulled back the covers and settled in next to her. He did not shut the light but opened a magazine. He turned the pages delicately, in a way that suggested he thought she had fallen back to sleep.
Amanda burrowed in closer to him, wide awake with remorse.
“Did you have a rough day?” Her tone was more solicitous than it had been in weeks.
He folded up the magazine and gathered her tightly in his arms. “I thought you were out cold.”
“I was. Now I’m not.”
He strained to reach for the light without disturbing her position. When he spoke again it was dark, and she couldn’t see his face although it was only a few inches away. His freshly rinsed breath still smelled faintly of Scotch.
“It wasn’t bad,” he said. “Just a lot of trench work, trying to line up companies to testify against Frith.”
“Are they coming along?”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a long pause, in which Amanda realized Bob was drifting off to sleep. She didn’t want him to, not yet—not until she was certain things were normal between them again.
“Are you speaking to Jim Hochmayer?” Amanda remembered that she had not told Bob about the Texan’s dinner invitation to Susie.
“Yeah,” he said sluggishly.
“He’s dating Susie.”
“Huh?” This roused him slightly.
“She met him at Chasen’s. I did too. He asked her out. He seems like a nice guy. For once.”
“Wow. That’s impressive.” Bob’s voice started to fade again. “Good for her.” He yawned. “I didn’t think she still had it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What?”
“What did you mean by that?”
Amanda Bright @ Home Page 11