by Rona Jaffe
“One thing I’m still smart about though,” Chris said. “I’m very good at my job. Cameron is still glad he hired me. He respects me as a colleague and a friend, so I have that. Do you know, he asked me once if I was all right? He thought I was sick. He thought all this … was some disease.”
“Oh, Chris,” Annabel said, wondering why Chris was so stubborn, and always had been. She remembered the time at college when she’d made Chris get out of bed and dressed her up to go to the Freshman Mixer, and how Chris had refused to have any fun at all and had left early. “I suppose Alexander is still claiming to be celibate.”
“What do you mean, ‘claiming’? I know he is. He’s home every night, works all day, and plays squash. That’s all he does.”
“Sounds unnatural to me,” Annabel said. “I think you should have an affair with Cameron. That would be natural. And it would be a lot more fun than indigestion.”
“I can’t,” Chris said. “I look too awful.”
That night Annabel told Dean about her lunch with Chris, and he listened with the concentrated awe and pleasure of a child hearing a story. She realized that nothing in his life or experience so far had made him able to understand the complexities of how Chris really felt. Or her own concern and empathy either, for that matter. He believed in acting on his feelings, as she did, and trying not to hurt people too badly; but a person like Chris was a mystery to him.
“She’s ruining her health,” he said. “I thought you told me she was brilliant.”
“She’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known,” Annabel said.
“Then she doesn’t care,” he said. “I have friends like that.”
“Where?”
“I haven’t let you meet them.”
Drugs, she thought. “Dean, do you have a secret life?” she asked him, half kidding and half wondering.
“No, but I have some friends you haven’t met; people I knew before you, when I was young and silly. Don’t you know people from before, who you wouldn’t want me to see?”
“Lots,” Annabel said cheerfully. “But I’ve forgotten them.”
She was, however, to see the rejected Monica, since Dean’s agent had gotten an art gallery to put together a showing of his work. There would be some originals of his magazine covers and ads, and also some new paintings. There would also be drinks, canapés, publicity, critics, and, hopefully, buyers. Dean had already, at his young age, sold a painting to a museum.
The party was at Glass II, the frisky new SoHo addition to the staid Glass Gallery on Madison Avenue. Annabel was very proud of Dean. Because of the rush hour lack of cabs and the honor of the occasion she had hired a limousine to take them there, wait, and then take them on to dinner. Limousines charged a two-hour minimum anyway, she said when Dean protested the expense. He actually felt comfortable on the subway. It was one of the things that made her conscious of his youth. And of course, other people would be conscious of it too, since much of the talk tonight would be about how amazing it was for an artist so young to have done so well. He could have hired his own limousine, if he had cared, or even thought of it.
Annabel was aware that she was twenty years older than he, but it didn’t bother her. She knew the happiness she was feeling with him made her radiant. She dressed in black, her favorite and best color, which showed off her own bright coloring of auburn hair, creamy skin, and green eyes. She made Dean wear a dark suit. He deferred to her in many ways lately, which she found touching. When they entered the room she thought they made a splendid couple.
The gallery was just crowded enough to make the party a success, but not so crowded as to be uncomfortable. Annabel had been there with Dean the night before to see the pictures all hung, but even the second time she was struck with admiration for him. His agent, who looked like a gypsy fortune teller, was thrilled, and Annabel hoped she had the gift as well as the outfit. People kept coming over to meet him.
“This is Monica,” Dean said. “Monica, Annabel.”
So this tall, slim, sad-faced girl was Monica. She was wearing the shoulderbag he had given her before they parted, the present that had brought him to Annabel. She was sweet-looking but not very pretty; she had probably been comfortable to live with, devoted, a good friend. There were girls like her all over, having their hearts broken, thinking they weren’t beautiful enough, wondering what they had done wrong. Annabel wanted to take her aside and tell her it wasn’t her fault, that when she was young she’d been spectacularly beautiful, and all it had brought her was more men to break her heart. But of course she would do no such thing. Monica was not a “girl,” she was a woman of twenty-six, and she wanted a grown-up life. So did Annabel. It was only Dean who did not. I’m not your rival, Annabel wanted to say; the world is. But knowing it was also true for herself, she simply smiled and shook hands.
Then more people came over to be introduced to the guest of honor, and they were all three separated. A pleasant-looking slim woman with blonde hair and a green suit came over to Annabel and smiled. “You’re Annabel Jones, aren’t you,” she said. “You don’t know me. My husband pointed you out. He recognized you. He used to go out with you at college.”
“Oh?”
“I’m Ann Wood. You might remember him—he was at Harvard Law School. Bill Wood?”
Remember him? Her fiancé, who had jilted her just before the wedding? Used to go out with him? What about slept together for a year? “Where is he?” Annabel asked, trying to sound casual.
“Oh, do come over and I’ll reintroduce you,” Ann Wood said. “And thank you for not marrying him. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have met him, and we’ve been very happy all these years.”
Annabel was so dumbfounded she couldn’t think of an answer. You’re welcome? Obviously this woman thought Annabel could have caught him if she’d a mind to; what in the world had Bill Wood been saying? Not much of the truth, she was sure of that.
She was led over to a tall, lined, gray-haired old man. Only the eyes were the same, Bill Wood’s eyes, or she would never have recognized him at all.
“Well, I declare!” Annabel said cheerfully. “Bill Wood! I always did think you would grow up to look like Abraham Lincoln and you didn’t disappoint me.”
They shook hands. She could see from his eyes that he was absolutely stunned with admiration, and she wanted to kick him in the ankle. “You’re looking wonderful, Annabel,” he said, in that drawl that used to remind her of Jimmy Stewart—oh, she was a great one for making people famous—and now moved her not at all.
“Thank you. And are you a judge? I always thought you would be.”
“Nope. Just an Indiana lawyer.”
“A quite eminent one,” his wife said. She smoothed his lapel and Annabel noticed on her finger the very same little diamond ring that Bill Wood had once given to her. It had to be the same ring. She would never forget it, and how proud of it she’d been, letting no opportunity pass to show it off. The little diamond engagement ring she’d dropped in his martini after he ditched her at the airport. Good-bye, Bill. Have a nice life.
“And are you having a nice life?” Annabel asked.
“A very nice life,” he said. “And you?”
“Excellent.”
“I’m pleased. Ann has an art gallery back home. That’s why we’re here. We travel quite a lot, looking for paintings. It’s interesting for me, having that in addition to the law.”
Bill Wood, with the life he’d wanted, living it happily without her. Annabel had often wondered what he would be like now, and here he was, and he moved her not at all. He looked so old! He carried himself like an old man. But he wasn’t that old; only forty-eight or so. It was just that she’d always remembered him the way he had been twenty-five years ago. She didn’t look the same either. But she looked better. She tried to remember if he had been amusing or interesting and realized he had not. He had been an intellectual, an idol, an image: The Serious Lawyer. She had wanted to bring fun and humor into his life,
as he would bring stability and honor to hers. If he had married her, perhaps she would be the one standing here now smoothing his lapel, saying how eminent he was.
“And what brings you to this opening?” Bill Wood asked, by way of conversation, since she looked like his idea of a sophisticated New York woman who went everywhere.
Annabel smiled sweetly. “I live with Dean Henry,” she said.
Bill Wood’s mouth dropped open. His wife looked at Annabel with something approaching awe. Twenty-five years later, women like her were no longer The Harvard Whore.
Thank you, Bill, Annabel thought. You always gave me a great exit line.
Chapter Nine
Chris, taking a bath, cursed the day she had put a mirrored wall into the bathroom to make it look large and luxurious. Her image—distorted, soft, with obscene rolls and lumps of dimpled fat—mocked her in those mirrors now, and she avoided looking at her ugly naked body. She had filled the tub with bubble bath so she would not have to look at herself through the water either. She was not simply stout, which might have been all right, but she was like someone who had been force-fed, some diseased Strasbourg goose, and she had been the one who had force-fed herself. The food looked as if it had not even been digested yet but was simply hiding under her skin, bite upon bite, like a monstrous impressionist sculpture of a fat woman. She hated herself for having done this, but she could not stop.
Her scale had been relegated to the back of her closet because she never weighed herself anymore. Her Thin Clothes, the ones from her other life, were in another closet, and the closet in her bedroom held her Fat Clothes, the shapeless tents she had bought to cover this new body. They were always black, for she was in mourning for the person she used to be, and because black was said to make you look thinner. She bought a great many handbags lately—in fact, she might be said to be obsessed with handbags—because handbags didn’t have to fit. Everything else did, even shoes.
She also bought lovely things for her handbags: wallets and makeup cases and pens and appointment books. She was neat and organized. She was also clean. Her house was clean, her face and body and hair and clothes were clean. Her stomach was always distended, and she thought whatever was inside it (and there always was a great deal inside it; she felt as though she never digested fully before she was stuffing herself again) was filthy. She often thought of stopping this madness, of going on a diet, but the resolution never lasted even for a day.
Tonight Alexander was playing squash after work, which he did twice a week lately. His physical fitness made her inactivity and appearance seem even worse. He would come home at eight, and then they would have dinner. He played squash and she took a bath. To each his own form of relaxation.
Out of the tub she dried herself quickly, avoiding the mirrors. Body lotion, scented powder, a touch of perfume, some makeup. Her at-home muumuu, one of a large new collection. She wanted everything to be nice, even though it wasn’t.
“Hello! Where are you?” Alexander called out the same thing he always did. He wanted everything to be nice too, even though it wasn’t.
“I’m here.” A glass of wine in the den, and then dinner, a normal dinner with normal food and conversation, Chris eating little, making sure she ate less than he did, as if she were fooling anybody.
Nicholas emerged from his room in time for dinner. He had changed from his school clothes to jeans and a sweatshirt, and Chris noticed that although she had bought them for him only a few months ago, he was already growing too tall for them. He looked like a combination of her and Alexander; the best of both of them. Alexander’s intense, dark eyes and Heathcliff face, her own warmth and humor. Alexander’s handsomeness had always been unique, so spectacular that it seemed almost a tragic beauty; with always something withheld, mysterious; but Nicholas’s teen-aged good looks were more accessible, friendlier; he smiled easily and had ready laughter in him. The laughter she used to have.… Naturally he was very popular.
They had decided to spend Thanksgiving weekend in the country. Nicholas was not going to be there; he was going to Disney World in Florida with a friend from school and the friend’s parents. It was the first time he was not spending Thanksgiving with her and Alexander, and Chris wondered if it was the normal process of growing up or if he was anxious to be away from the sight of her. She did not intend to mention this.
“I must tell you, Nicholas,” Alexander said, “that your mother and I are a little offended to be rejected this Thanksgiving for Mickey Mouse and Goofy.”
“And Minnie Mouse,” Nicholas said, grinning.
“Well, we’ll miss you,” Alexander said. “Not that I want you to be overwhelmed with guilt and have a miserable time, but I just thought I’d say so.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“And you know you can invite your friends to the country,” Alexander said. “Remember when you were young and always had kids up?”
Nicholas nodded. “It was great then, but … I’m too old to run through leaves.”
Alexander laughed. “When you’re older and less jaded you’ll like it again.” He turned to Chris. “The house won’t be too empty though. I’ve invited the banker I play squash with to come to the country for Thanksgiving and bring a date. You’ll like him, I think.”
“What’s his name?”
“James Riss the Third. But he’s not as stuffy as that sounds. Although he insists on being called James, not Jim.”
“You insist on being called Alexander, not Alex,” Chris said. “And you’re not stuffy.”
Alexander smiled. “Well, thank you. Although sometimes I think I am.”
“What about his date; separate rooms or together?”
“I don’t know how well he knows her. How about separate rooms and let them sneak across the hall.”
“Fine,” Chris said.
Nicholas looked amused, obviously storing away the antics of grownups for future blackmail when he was old enough to bring home a date.
It was an ordinary family dinner. But no, it was not an ordinary family dinner, because as always lately, there was the thing that totally possessed her: the food.
Dessert was a plain cake. Alexander did not eat it, saying he was full. Chris, therefore, did not eat any either. Nicholas had one piece, as always. He was slim and active, and had never been obsessed with sweets. As soon as dinner was over he went to his room to do his homework, and Alexander and Chris went to the den to do some work from their offices before going to bed. Mrs. Gormley cleaned up the kitchen and went home.
It was a normal evening. But no, it was not a normal evening. Chris thought about the cake that was left over, she thought about nothing else. Not Alexander and how much she loved him; that was too painful. Not the work from the office, although she tried. Not even the pleasant Thanksgiving weekend and what she should serve with the turkey; that was too far away. The cake was right in the next room, and she could taste it and feel it against her tongue.
She and Alexander watched the eleven o’clock news in bed, and he was asleep before it was over. He had forgotten even to kiss her goodnight. He always came home from the Athletic Club exhausted, freshly showered and virtuous from his hour of frantic physical activity. She suspected that it was his sublimation, just as she had hers, but his was constructive and hers was bad.
Bad …
She turned off the television set and lay there in the dark sleeplessly, thinking about that cake. She wanted to roll over and lie against Alexander’s back, put her arms around him for comfort, smell his skin, coordinate her breathing to his until she, too, fell asleep. But he had taken to wearing pajamas now, as she had begun to cover herself with nightgowns, and she felt if she pressed her body to his it would be an intrusion. He was as kind and sweet as ever, but no longer physical at all. He patted her and kissed her, but as if she were a beloved relative or best friend, not his wife. And she had to be careful about the way she touched or kissed him, to be sure it didn’t seem like a sexual invitation and therefore a reproac
h. Besides, if she put her arms around him now she might disturb him and wake him up.
She got out of bed quietly and went into the kitchen.
The cake was put away in its white box, tied with white string. Chris cut a large slice and ate it out of her hands, standing up over the sink to catch the crumbs. Then she washed her hands and rinsed the crumbs down the drain, closed the cake box, and tied it again neatly as if no one had touched it at all. As soon as she had, she opened it again. Her hands were shaking with impatience and desire. No, she thought. She closed it, and threw the whole box of cake into the garbage, there with the crumpled damp paper towels, the empty soda cans, the remains of Nicholas’s bedtime snack. She went back to bed.
She couldn’t sleep. She watched the green numbers leap and change on the digital clock beside her and wondered what Cameron was doing. Sleeping beside his young, pretty wife, of course, as he probably always would. That was never the issue. But he had desired her once, and she had wanted him. Chris wondered what would be happening now if she had said yes. Then she got up again and went into the kitchen to get at the cake.
She took it out of the garbage and she ate it all, the whole thing, sitting at the kitchen table, methodically slicing off hunks and jamming them into her mouth. She didn’t even bother to put it on a plate, just devoured it right out of the food-stained box on the theory that she would stop before it was gone. But then it was gone, and she went out into the service hall and threw the empty box into the incinerator so no one would know.
Then she brushed and flossed her teeth carefully, as she always did, and went to sleep. Alexander had never noticed she had left.
As Thanksgiving approached it seemed pointless to start a diet, because the Thanksgiving feast in the middle of a diet would be so demoralizing. Perhaps afterward … She was always making these good resolutions, and she realized now that she had no intention of doing anything about them. She hoped James Riss the Third, and his no doubt slender date, would not wonder what in the world Alexander saw in her.