His Wife Leaves Him

by Stephen Dixon

  He puts his hands under his head on the pillow and thinks about the first time they met. He left the party and saw her at the other end of this long hall. She was standing in front of the elevator, waiting for it to come. Then she must have heard him behind her. No, she definitely heard him. They talked about it sometime later. She said her first thought was that someone was about to grab or attack her, and that she’s usually not so paranoid. That his feet stomped as he ran as if he were wearing combat boots. He wasn’t running but hurrying now because he didn’t want her to get in the elevator before he got there and the door to close. Though if the elevator had come he would have yelled “Hold the elevator,” wouldn’t he? She then might have pushed the “open” or “6” button to keep the door from closing—not an easy move to do, as you got to think fast and have quick coordination—or held the door open with her hand. Or maybe she would have let the door close. Intentionally, because she still might have felt he wanted to hurt her, or because she couldn’t get to the right button in time. If that had happened, he thinks he would have run to the stairway and down the five flights. But by the time he would have reached the ground floor, she would have been out of the building. Would he have tried, if he had run out of the building and saw her on the street, to catch up with her? Doesn’t think so. Wouldn’t want to startle or scare her. But he could have just walked fast—that is, if she hadn’t stopped in front of the building—and then slower when he got near her, and said something to start a conversation, like what? “Excuse me, but we were at the same party tonight. My name’s Martin Samuels, I’m a friend of Pati’s, and I hope I didn’t just now startle or scare you in any way.” Ah, why’s he speculating on something that didn’t happen? Because it’s interesting, going through all the possibilities that could have happened and then zeroing in on what actually did. And what the hell else he’s got to do now? And he likes the idea of, well…of, that he was going to meet and get to know her no matter what. What’s he mean by that? That if all else flopped—if the elevator had closed with her in it and she wasn’t on the street when he got there—he would have asked Pati if she knew the slim blond woman with the beautiful smile and her hair in a chignon, if that’s what that is when it’s knotted or rolled up at the back of the head. Or knew someone at the party who did—the person she came with—and if she could fix them up somehow or just give or get him the woman’s phone number, if she isn’t married or engaged. Or if married, not separated. And, of course, she wasn’t married or even seeing anyone then. And Pati would have got him her number and he would have called, or asked Pati to call her first about him, and then called and arranged to meet her for coffee or a drink. Anyway, on the sixth floor, waiting for the elevator, she heard him and quickly turned around, looking a bit startled. He said something like—or he also could have asked Pati for the woman’s name and address or whereabouts in the city she lived, if she knew, or just what borough, and he would have got her number out of the Manhattan phone book because it turned out she was the only person in it with her name. But he said something like—definitely the “leaver” part, though; that he definitely remembers, his first attempt at trying to be funny or clever with her—“Don’t worry, it’s just me, a fellow partygoer and now -leaver, and also a friend of the host. That is, if you are a friend of Pati’s and weren’t brought to the party by someone who is or who knows her in some other way—a colleague at her magazine, let’s say.” She said something like “No, I know Pati quite well.” “That so?” he said. “May I ask from where?” and she said “Grad school. She was a few years ahead of me but we became friends.” “I only met her this summer. At Yaddo—you know, the artist colony, or art colony, or whatever they call it.” He said that to let her know right off he was an artist of some sort and serious enough at it to get into that place. He thought, maybe because he assumed she was interested in the arts, he thinks, she’d ask him what he does, and then, because he also must have assumed she was getting or had gotten a doctorate in some kind of literature at Columbia, like Pati, what he was working on up there and was it a productive stay and so on. Probably not the latter. But she just as easily could have assumed he was working on nonfiction. Pati had gone straight from getting her doctorate to working for Partisan Review and was at Yaddo the exact same time period he was—they even took the bus back together—writing a biography of an influential eighteenth-century French thinker whose name he forgets. Starts with a T, his first name. T-s, T-z, T-p—but it’s not important. He never read anything the guy wrote, though Pati had loaned him a couple of his books at Yaddo and then at the party asked for them back. Such a stupid move, though, trying to impress Gwen fifteen seconds after he met her with that “leaver” remark and then the Yaddo business. Thierry, that’s it. He should have thought at the time—maybe he did, but just couldn’t stop himself—that she was very smart—she certainly looked it, and her voice, if he can put it this way, was very smart too—to see through his inept maneuvers. She might even have thought “What bullshit this guy’s trying to hand me.” Not “bullshit” but some other word. “Hokum”; “bullcrap”; “baloney.” Can’t think when she ever cursed, and he bets she also rarely did it in her head. Though once, when she was very sick, she cried out “Why the fuck did this have to happen to me? Excuse me; I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be vulgar. But I’m fed up with my illness; fed up.” But about that first night, she later said—weeks later, maybe months, when they were seeing each other almost every day—that she knew—he’d asked—he’d made the Yaddo reference to impress her. He’d said something like “I thought so. And what a dummy I was, too, because it doesn’t take much to get into Yaddo—a few publications and a couple of good references—and you probably knew that. It was so desperate, but it shows how eager I was to get you interested in me, at least to the point where you wouldn’t brush me off when I asked, and I was intending to, if we could meet for coffee sometime or a drink. I’m just glad it didn’t do any lasting harm. It didn’t, did it? And she said—now he remembered: they were having dinner at her apartment; he’d brought food from Ozu, a restaurant he’d discovered and which became, more for dining there than takeout, one of her favorites for a couple of years—“What do you think?” “What about my ‘leaver’ remark from the same night?” and she said “‘Leave her’? ‘Leaver’? ‘Lever’ like the handle?” “As in ‘fellow partyleaver,’ one of the first things I said to you when we met at the elevator after leaving Pati’s party. Also said just to impress you?” She said “I think I didn’t understand what you meant with that leaver but didn’t want to question you on it, so I let it go. Now I see what you were getting at—‘partygoer, partyleaver.’ I can be slow—and I’d say it’s so-so to maybe a-little-more-than-that clever. At any rate, original. I’m not aware of anyone else who’s used it. So you are, to the best of the little I know, a coiner.” For a while after that, when he called her, he’d say “Hi, it’s your coiner calling,” or just “It’s the coiner” or “your coiner” and once or twice “your coiner calling from a corner,” till she stopped laughing at any line with “coiner” in it, so he stopped using it. Anyway, sixth floor, after he mentioned Yaddo and got no verbal response and he doesn’t think any visual reaction to it either, “So, I assume that, like Pati, you went or still go to Columbia for your doctorate?” and she said yes. “Went? Go?” and she said “Went, although I’m still very much there.” “So you’re not completely done with it? Or you are—orals, dissertation, defense of it, if the orals and defense aren’t the same thing,” and she said “They’re not, and I am done with them.” “Literature, also, like Pati?” and she said “Same language but literature of a different century.” “What are you doing with it? Or maybe I should say, why are you still at Columbia, if that’s not too personal a question?” “I’m doing a postdoc and also teaching a humanities course as part of their Great Books program.” “That should be interesting,” he said. “And a feather in your cap and gown, I guess, and no doubt a terrific addition to your vita for
a possible job there or somewhere else, though I’m not sure what a postdoc is.” “It’s short for post-doctorate,” and he said “No, that my little pea brain figured out. But it’s not another degree, is it?” and she said no. “So what were your thesis and dissertation on? And it is a dissertation for your Ph.D. and not a thesis, right?” and she said yes and gave the title of her thesis and he said “You’re not going to believe this, though I don’t see why not, but he’s just about my favorite nineteenth-century fiction writer. Maybe favorite of any kind of writer and of all centuries and millennia, not counting whichever one Homer was in. though he only wrote, if we can call it that, two books, while your guy filled up volumes and everything I’ve read of his shines,” and she said “You of course know he extended into the twentieth century, though not by much, but is considered primarily a nineteenth-century writer.” “Right,” he said, “the late great stuff,” and gave a couple of the titles. “As the title suggests, I wrote about his long stays in France and his friendships with intellectuals there and all things French. He’s not who I wrote about for my dissertation,” and he said “Oh, and who’s that?” and she said, and he said “This is amazing. He’s one of my favorite contemporary writers, and I’m not just saying that.” She smiled, not, it seemed, at what he said but as if that was to be the end of their conversation, and turned to face the elevator. “Tell me,” he said, “and if I’m talking too much or you no longer want to talk, tell me that too, but have you been waiting long? I mean, more than the three minutes or so we’ve been standing here?” “Not that long.” “So what should we think, the elevator’s broken or stuck?” “It was working fine when I got to the party. I’d say it’s not working and that if it doesn’t come in the next minute we should think about walking downstairs. It’s only five flights.” “You walk,” she said; “I don’t mind waiting. And I’m sure it’s being held up because someone’s loading or unloading a lot of things off it and that it’ll eventually come. Besides, I don’t like those stairs.” He said “Why, what’s wrong with them?” and she said “They’re unusually long and insufficiently lit and also a bit creepy. And the one time I walked down—not because the elevator didn’t come—I couldn’t get out on either the ground or second floor.” “In that case, you’re right, and I’m glad you warned me. But it’d seem locking those doors would be against some fire regulation.” “I don’t know if they were locked or, as someone explained to me, it had something to do with humidity and air pressure. But I thought the same thing about a fire regulation being violated and told Pati and she said it’s happened to her too, more than once.” “Someone ought to complain, then, in case there is a fire or something like that,” and she said “Pati did, several times, she said, and the situation hadn’t been corrected when I walked down the stairs, so you can see why I don’t want to take the chance.” “I’ll be with you,” and she said “No, thanks.” “I was just kidding, of course,” and she said “About what?” “Nothing. I thought I might’ve sounded pushy,” and she said “I didn’t think so. You were trying to be helpful. Thank you.” The conversation went something like that. More he talked to her, more he knew he didn’t want to leave her without getting her phone number and some assurance she’d meet him sometime for coffee or a drink. He still didn’t know if she was married or engaged or had a steady boyfriend. She had gloves on now but at the party he got close enough to her to see she wore no ring on either hand. He remembers thinking at the elevator What a beautiful voice she has, clear and soft, and a lovely face and good figure. And she speaks so well, he thought, and is obviously very smart and seems gracious and he likes what she does: teaching and getting a Ph.D. in literature and at Columbia. They’d have lots to talk about if they started seeing each other. He was never a scholar but he did like to talk about books and writers and he often read literary criticism of novels and stories he’d recently finished but felt there was more to them than he got and wanted somebody else’s take on them. He could reread her writer or read some of the work he hadn’t read or she recommended and what she thought were the best translations of it, and later talk about it with her. He liked the way she smiled and laughed at the party—not loud, and the smile warm and genuine, and the intelligent look she had when she seemed to be in a serious conversation. She usually had a guy or two talking to her and one time three or four men surrounding her, each, it seemed, vying for her attention. That made him think that maybe there wasn’t one particular guy in her life, but of course, he thought, it could be that her husband or boyfriend hadn’t come to the party. She was the beauty there, that’s for sure. He remembers when she came in—alone, took her coat and hat off in the foyer, probably her gloves too, and went in back with them and, he assumes, put them with most of the other coats and where his was too, on Pati’s bed. When she came back out and waved to some people and went over to them, he said to himself something like “Jesus, what a doll.” He practically stalked her at the party, losing sight of her only when he went to the bathroom or into another room for a drink. He was waiting for a chance to go up to her and introduce himself or say anything to her, just so long as they started talking, but she was always with someone, mostly men but sometimes a woman or two. She never noticed him staring at her because she never turned his way when he was. He wanted her to and then, he thought, he’d give an expression with his raised forehead and some other thing with his face that he was interested in her or had been wanting to talk to her but didn’t want to barge in and could she free herself for a moment? How he was going to get any of that in with a look, he didn’t know. But he thought he could—maybe just smile in a way that suggested he wanted to meet her—and she might even come over to him or at least gesture in some way—hand or face or some move with her head—for him to come over to her. Then she was gone. A man tapped his shoulder from behind, and he turned around. “Aren’t you Donald Boykin?” the man said, and he said no and the man said “You look just like him; sorry.” When he turned back to the spot he’d been watching her at, she’d disappeared. He looked for her in the room he could see from the one he was in, but she wasn’t there. He went through the entire apartment looking for her. He’d made up his mind; he was going to go over to her even if she was with other people. He didn’t know what he was going to say; something, though. Maybe make up a woman’s name—Dorothy Becker—and ask her if she was this woman and then say “Sorry, haven’t seen her in a long time and I used to know her fairly well and I thought she’d think I was ignoring her if I didn’t say hello. And now that I think of it, you couldn’t be her because her resemblance to you is from more than ten years ago when she was around your age. Stupid mistake on my part. But may I ask your name? Mine’s…I was thinking of saying I almost forgot it, but that’d be such a dumb joke. Martin Samuels,” and he’d stick his hand out to shake. If she was with someone, he’d ask that person’s name and shake hands. If she was with two or more people, he’d just say hello to them. The joke part, only if she was alone. Or probably not the joke part; too silly, so he’d just give his name. He actually thought of this while he was looking for her. If she wasn’t alone, he’d first apologize to her and whoever she was with for breaking into their conversation. He didn’t know what he’d do after he asked her name and gave his. It could be embarrassing, being the stranger of the group and just staying there, but he’d take the chance. Maybe he’d say “Well, nice meeting you all,” and walk away and try to catch her later if she was alone, now knowing her name and the introduction, of sorts, out of the way. Then he thought she might be in the hallway bathroom. When he passed it to look for her in Pati’s bedroom, the door was closed and he could see through the crack at the bottom that a light was on inside. Although someone could have left it on after using the room. He didn’t want to try the doorknob to see if it was locked. He didn’t want to give the impression he was trying to get the person inside to finish sooner. He stood outside the bathroom. This almost had to be where she was, he thought. And if she was in there, this’d be a goo
d opportunity to speak to her alone when she came out, but another woman came out. He said “Hi,” went in and locked the door. He didn’t want the woman to think he’d been waiting outside the bathroom for nothing. And as long as he was in here, he thought, he should pee. He was going to have to do it soon anyway, what with the three or four Bloody Marys and bottle of water he had, and then he really might have to go and both bathrooms might be occupied. He peed, then went through the apartment looking for her again. Nah, it’s hopeless, he thought. He went into the bedroom for his coat. He didn’t see any reason to stay, now that she was gone. He knew nobody at the party but Pati and she was always getting or taking away things or introducing people. Birdbrain, he thought. For that’s what he should have done: got her to introduce him to that woman, but too late for that. He really hadn’t met anyone on his own here because he spent most of his time trying to meet that woman. He started to look for Pati to say goodbye. Then he told himself he’d call her tomorrow or the next day—probably tomorrow—to thank her for inviting him and to ask about this woman he tried speaking to but she was always surrounded by other people, and left. They waited for the elevator for about five minutes, maybe more. No, had to be more. There were long stretches when neither of them spoke and she looked mostly at the elevator, he mostly at her, and every so often she turned to him and smiled a bit mechanically and then looked back at the door. One time he said something like “We should seriously think about using the stairs. I’m sure the door down there will open or just need a good shove.” And she said “I told you: you go. I’ll go back to the party and tell Pati the elevator’s not working—yes, I concede; you were right all along,” and he said “Maybe I wasn’t.” “Anyhow,” she said, “she can call the super. But I’m not walking downstairs to get out of the building, at least not yet.” “It’s not that you’re in any way apprehensive of me,” and she said “Do you mean afraid of you? Of course not. You’re a friend of Pati’s, so why would I think that?” The surprising thing, he now thinks, was that they weren’t joined by anyone else from the party or floor, which had about eight apartments to it and it wasn’t late. The elevator came around then. He said “Like tie-ups on highways, no explanation when traffic finally gets moving,” and she said “I know, but hurray.” They got in the elevator and the door closed. “Think it’s safe?” she said, and he said “I now bet it was just someone unloading a whole bunch of packages or furniture.” “No,” she said, “it took too long.” “A huge piece of furniture could’ve got stuck in the elevator door or the person or persons kept the door open with something heavy while they carried some stuff into the apartment, and then got caught up in a phone call there,” and she said “Please, let’s get traffic moving.” He was nearer the button panel and said “Which floor should I push for you?” She looked at him as if she found the line peculiar or she didn’t quite know what it meant or something else but she didn’t smile or laugh, and he said “Just trying to be funny. I don’t know why I feel I always have to crack you up.” She said why would he want to? and reached past him and pressed the button for the ground floor and the elevator started moving—and he said something like “Before you think I’m entirely ridiculous or nuts—I’m not, the second one, anyway—let me in as adroit a manner as I can manage under the circumstances tell you why.” He said that what he was about to say must have been obvious to her at the party. He’d wanted to introduce himself to her since she got there but, and these were his exact words, “I didn’t have the guts.” Also, “and believe me, none of this is a line,” she was always talking to someone or several people and looking as if she was having a good time and he didn’t want to butt in. He must have made her uncomfortable, though, staring at her so much, and he apologized for that. They had to have been out of the elevator by now and might have been walking to the outside door. She said his staring, as he called it, wasn’t obvious to her because she didn’t remember seeing him at the party, and he said “Oh, you had to have, at least my shirt,” and opened his coat. “You see, I didn’t know it was going to be so formal an event.” His shirt was a long-sleeved rugby type, blue and yellow stripes with a white opened-neck collar. “I thought it was going to be a small informal get-together of friends Pati made at Yaddo this summer. I thought that because the day we left there, that’s what she said she was going to do this fall. I didn’t see anybody from Yaddo there. But I didn’t know she knew so many well-known painters and writers and high-powered critics and book editors and the like. I didn’t get to meet any of them but overheard people saying they were there and a couple of them I recognized. In fact, I was talking briefly with some writer a few years younger than I, who cut me off and said ‘Excuse me, so-and-so publishing bigshot just came in and I was told I should meet him.’ What a schmuck.” “He was only trying to push himself a little; that’s not too bad. But what I find curious is that I still have no recollection of you at the party.” He remembers she took a while buttoning her coat and wrapping her muffler or scarf around her neck and maybe even adjusting her gloves and cap before they went outside. “Oh, I was there, all right,” he said. “I know, but what I’m saying,” she said, or at least something like this, “is that I think I would have remembered you, as you said, from your shirt. I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, either. I certainly hope I’m not. Your shirt is just fine, and that it has long sleeves, even better for a late-fall party. But it does stand out in its own way and would have contrasted with all the jackets and ties and dress shirts. Were we ever in the same room together?” and he said “Oh, yeah. And by the way, you were very diplomatic just now and I don’t at all feel uncomfortable in what you said. At first I felt a bit odd at the party in this shirt, but I quickly got over it. But I even got so close to you in a couple of rooms—I’m afraid to even admit this bit of snooping, but here goes; I’ve just about told you everything else except, maybe, how surprised and disappointed I was when I saw you were suddenly gone from the party—that I… where was I? That I was able to see—that’s it—that you only half-finished your glass of red wine and left it on a coaster on a credenza and that you seemed to favor the smoked salmon and carrot sticks, but with no dip on them, of all the hors d’oeuvres and crudités on the food table. I also like carrot sticks, but with the dip. Anyway—” They had to be outside by now because he said something like “So, here we are. Which way you going? I live on the Upper West Side and was going to take the Broadway train.” “So do I,” she said, “—Upper Upper. But I’m taking the Lexington Avenue line to meet someone on the Upper East Side.” “Someone important?” and she said “If you mean in my life, a good friend.” “Which subway station, the one on Astor Place?” “There’s a closer one near Prince. I know how to find it from here.” “Would you mind if I walked you to the subway?” and she said “It isn’t necessary and would take you too far out of your way. And the streets down here on weekends are always crowded at this time, so I feel perfectly safe going alone.” “No, I’m sure you do. It’s just I only suggested it because I’ve enjoyed talking to you and I’d like to—you must’ve known this was eventually coming—for us to meet again. And not meet accidentally, at a future Pati party, let’s say, but intentionally. Willingly. Something. Prearranged. For coffee. Would that be okay with you? You can check with Pati first to see what she thinks of me. But she wouldn’t have invited me to her party—the only acquaintance from Yaddo there, as far as I saw, though maybe the others couldn’t make it—if she thought poorly of me. Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. I’ve killed it, haven’t I?” “Why do you say that?” and he said “Because I’m just bumbling, bumbling.” “Really, you’re too tough on yourself. Sure, we can always meet for coffee one afternoon when I’m not teaching or busy with something else and you’re also free.” “Afternoons are good. Mornings too. I’m pretty much unemployed now except for my writing and what I make off of it, so I can meet anytime. It’s easy, and I don’t mind, breaking up my workday, because I can easily get back to it and usually with fres
h ideas and better ways of saying what I was working on that I wouldn’t’ve had if I just continued writing without that break. I don’t know if that was clear, what I said, but I call them, these breaks, constructive interruptions. Anyway, I’m holding you up. So, great, we’ll meet. How should we arrange it?” and she said “Call, since I won’t know till I get home what my schedule’s like the next few weeks other than for my classes and office hours.” She gave her last name and the spelling of it and said he doesn’t need her address to find her in the Manhattan phone book since she’s the only Gwendolyn Liederman in it. “Nice to meet you, Martin. You go by Martin and not Marty, am I right?” “Always Martin. Kids called me Marty when I was young and I never liked it. I always pictured this tubby shlub, which I never was. Otherwise, I’m not so formal. Then I’ll call you, Gwendolyn. ‘Gwendolyn’ and not ‘Gwen’? They’re both nice.” “‘Gwen’ is fine,” she said, “although I like Gwendolyn better. But either. Goodnight.” She put her hand out, he shook it, and she started for the Prince Street station. “Sure you don’t want someone to accompany you?” he said. And she stopped and turned around. “I absolutely don’t mind going out of my way. It’s not that cold and I like to walk and I’ve nothing to do now but go home. Oh, that must sound ridiculously pathetic. Or pathetically ridiculous. Neither is what I intended it to be. It’s just that it’s still so early.” “Go back to the party, then,” and he said “No, I’ve already said goodbye to Pati. It’d seem too peculiar, coming back, ringing up to be let in, putting my coat on the bed again, etcetera. I’m happy to go home. I’ve plenty to do.” She nodded and resumed walking and he headed for the subway station on Canal Street. He looked back a short time later and she was gone. He remembers thinking she walks fast and disappeared as quickly as she did at the party. He hoped she wasn’t hurrying to meet up with a boyfriend. Weekend night; it makes sense. But if she was, why would she agree to meet him? Maybe to get rid of him and when he calls she’ll say she changed her mind and doesn’t think it necessary to give a reason why. Or the reason is that she’s seeing someone or she’s too busy with her work to meet anybody now, even for coffee. Or she might have agreed to meet him because she likes to take a break herself and the boyfriend she can always see in the evening. It’s all innocent, in other words, he thought, walking to the subway station: tantamount to nothing. She has no plans whatsoever in getting to know him better than as someone to meet once, and if she finds him interesting enough, maybe meet for coffee a second time, but just for talk. But he was so inarticulate and clownish with her, what could she have thought they could talk about? Her authors, for one thing, but she must know ten times as much about them than he does. He should have asked if she was presently seeing someone, he thought. Well, he sort of did, she skipped around it, and anything more on his part would have been prying. Later—a couple of months or so—he was thinking about the first time they met and said to her “If you were seeing some other guy when we first met, would you have agreed to meet me for coffee or even told me how to get your phone number?” “I doubt it,” she said. “I knew you were interested in me and I wouldn’t have wanted to lead you on. Of course, it all would have depended on how serious a relationship I was in.” “As serious as the one you’re in now?” and she said “Then, no.” “Semi-serious?” and she said “Maybe. Or maybe it would have had to be several notches below ‘semi.’ A relationship that wasn’t going anywhere or I was coming out of, with no chance of going back.” “Can I ask why you did agree to meet me?” and she said “The usual reasons. I wasn’t seeing anyone, hadn’t in a while, and I found you attractive and pleasant and smart—” “Smart? You thought I was smart? I acted like a complete putz.” “No, you didn’t. Let’s just say I saw past what you called that night your bumblingness.” “I didn’t say it that way exactly, but you were close. I’m surprised you remembered even that much of it.” “I also liked your nervous approach. You weren’t cocky or presumptuous or anything like that. But another thing that interested me was that you were a writer.” “Writers turn you on, eh?” and she said “No. But writing about them and their work is a lot of what I do. So I think I was interested in talking to you about your work and what got you started at it and how you go about doing it and what keeps you at it, and so on. I didn’t at the time have much of an opportunity to speak to a live writer.” “I’m sorry,” he said, “that was a stupid thing for me to say.” “It wasn’t one of your brightest remarks,” she said, “especially because you knew the answer.” “Okay, I won’t make that mistake again, or I’ll try not to.”