by Rona Jaffe
She had a glass of white wine and talked to Annabel, feeling shy. Annabel seemed subdued, not the flirt Daphne remembered. But that was so long ago. “Dr. Fields is attractive,” she said quietly to Annabel. “Is he with you?”
“No. We’re all here alone. Chris, thank God, is beyond the stage of giving parties that resemble Noah’s Ark.”
He had brown hair with gray in it, kind-looking blue eyes, and chiseled features. Not like Richard’s, so picture perfect, but more accessible, more human. And she noticed he was lean and nicely built, an encouraging example for his patients, but with none of the gristly look of the fanatic about him. It had been a long time since she’d looked at a man that closely, but then of course there hadn’t been any close enough to look at.
“He’s available,” Annabel said. “Or at least he isn’t married. I don’t know about the available part. His wife died last year. He’s probably got a few twenty-year-olds tucked away; most of them do, don’t they?”
“Or thirty-year-olds,” Daphne said, remembering Melissa.
“He also has two children,” Annabel said. “A son and a fat daughter. Poor thing—a diet doctor with a fat child. And it must be hell to have a diet doctor for a father. They probably haven’t got a thing in their refrigerator but skimmed milk.”
Daphne laughed. “How do you know all that?”
“Chris told me. When she was going to him she had a major crush on him. She found out all about him from his nurse.”
“But not quite all …”
“No,” Annabel said. “If we aren’t disgraceful, hunting him down like he was the last living man on earth.”
“I’m not hunting him down,” Daphne said. “I haven’t even spoken to him.”
“You will. Chris has seated him between us at dinner. If you like him, please feel free to whisk him away, because I am still in love with someone.”
“Oh?” Daphne said. “Where is he?”
“I have no idea,” Annabel said lightly. “Just another broken heart, the story of my life.”
“The story of mine,” Daphne said.
She was so safe and content fantasizing about Dr. Fields and making a joke of it that when he saw them standing there and came over it was almost an intrusion.
He smiled at them. “I’ll just stay here for a while so those other people can eat their hors d’oeuvres,” he said, glancing at the couple he’d just left and looking amused. “People are always afraid to eat in front of me just because I’m a diet doctor.”
Daphne looked over and saw them accepting small stuffed mushrooms from the maid and popping them into their mouths with a look of starved relief. “They’re not even overweight,” she said. “Are you such an ogre?”
“Not at all. I don’t care what people eat as long as they’re not my patients.”
The maid came to them and she and Annabel took cheese puffs just to prove they were not intimidated, and then they both looked at each other and at him and laughed, because they were intimidated. “How awful,” Annabel said. “It’s like meeting a psychiatrist and trying to pretend you’re normal.”
“You should see what it’s like when I go to restaurants with friends,” he said. “Everybody’s afraid to order until they see what I’m having. Or else they ask for dry broiled fish. These overweight people who you know never ate a piece of dry broiled fish in their lives.” He smiled.
“I wonder what Chris will offer us tonight,” Daphne said.
“I’m sure whatever she wants,” he said. “Chris and I have laughed about this. The funniest story is the carrot cake. Hostesses always serve carrot cake for dessert when I’m there because somehow they think it’s healthful or dietetic because it has carrots in it. Actually it’s one of the richest, most fattening things you can eat. If I have to go to another dinner party where I have to look at another piece of carrot cake …”
“That is funny,” Daphne said. She looked at him. He was the first man she’d found attractive in so long that she couldn’t even remember how long it had been. She hadn’t bothered to think about other men that way when she had been married to Richard. And now she would have to stop thinking about the years of Richard; they were over, and she didn’t want them back. She smiled at Dr. Fields. “Do you prefer being called Michael or Mike?”
“Michael, please.”
“Dinner is served,” Chris said.
“That’s good,” Michael said to Daphne and Annabel. “Because I’ve just run out of all my best anecdotes.”
He was shy … And yet he covered it nicely, and could even admit it. She hoped he wasn’t dull. Well, if he was, she was experienced at small talk; she’d been a good hostess and a good guest for so long.
He wasn’t dull. At dinner Daphne discovered he knew about art, was widely read, and had a sense of humor. She felt comfortable with him, and was also beginning to be attracted to him. Because there were only nine people everyone talked to each other and it turned out to be a good dinner party. There was roast rack of veal, very tender and juicy, without sauce and not needing any, and an enormous green salad with feta cheese in it. And then …
Carrot cake. Chris looked at Michael and he at her, and both of them collapsed into laughter. The other two couples didn’t know what was going on. “This is for you,” Chris said to him.
“Thank you.”
“Oh, poor thing,” Annabel whispered, and then the maid came out with a crème brûlée.
They all lingered at the table, and then they went into the living room for brandy. Daphne didn’t have any because she was going to have to drive back to the country. Suddenly, in that warmly lit room filled with pleasant people, the thought of going home alone to her empty house hit her with a jolt of desolation.
She felt the dangerous imminent presence of tears again. Pretending she was looking for the powder room, she went blindly down the hall until she found a private room that seemed to be the den, and then she began to cry.
She couldn’t bear any more loneliness. It was worse after being with people. It was like being handed a life preserver for just one moment and then having it yanked away. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Actually she hadn’t been alone for a very long time, but it seemed like an eternity. Nothing had prepared her for a life like this.
Michael was standing in the doorway looking at her.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she lied.
She glanced at him, embarrassed, her nose running, her eyes red, her mascara streaked, making a scene; and she saw that he was gazing at her as if she were the most beautiful creature in the world. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
Yes, don’t leave me, she thought. “No … thank you,” she said.
“Everyone’s leaving,” he said. “May I take you home?”
“I have my car. I have to drive to Connecticut.”
“Then why don’t I drop you off at the garage?”
“Thank you,” Daphne said. “That would be very kind.”
She repaired her makeup in the bathroom off the den so no one would ask questions, while he waited for her in the living room. But all the other guests were gone. She thanked Chris and Alexander for the lovely evening, and then she and Michael took a taxi to her garage.
“I really enjoyed meeting you,” he said.
“And I you.” She got out of the taxi, and then, on an impulse, she leaned into the open window before he could get away. “Would you like to come to the country for lunch tomorrow? You could bring your children if you like. There’s a lake nearby with ice skating …”
“My children are very popular and have dates, but I’d be delighted to come,” he said.
“You could take the train to Greenwich. There’s one that gets in at twelve thirty. Is that all right? I’ll meet you.”
“That would be great,” he said happily.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” Daphne said.
She had never done anything like that before in her life.
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br /> The next morning she bought good things for lunch from her local gourmet take-out store. She was at the station early, waiting. When Michael got off the train Daphne was relieved to see that he looked just as attractive in daylight as he had the night before. He had brought her a bottle of wine, and a bunch of roses.
“I thought bringing flowers to the country was redundant,” he said. “And then I thought: not in February.”
“You make me feel guilty,” she said. “I should have invited you for the weekend.”
Before lunch she took him on the mandatory tour of the grounds. Then they went back indoors to thaw out in front of the fire she had lit in the living-room fireplace. She had not been able to decide where to serve lunch. The dining room was so big, and it seemed so empty with only two people in it. But the kitchen might seem too casual. She would let him choose.
“By the fire,” he said immediately. “I’ll help you carry everything.”
He was shaking up her life already. She liked it.
They sat over lunch for hours and talked and talked about themselves. She found herself able to tell him everything, all the things she had been saving up with no one to tell them to, and all the things she had hidden. She told him about her protected, privileged childhood, and the stigma of her epilepsy when she was dating, and her marriage, and Elizabeth, and Jonathan; how maybe he’d been miserable and couldn’t tell them because they all had to pretend to be so damned happy—but she would never know—and she told him about her other boys; especially Teddy, who was her miracle. And he told her about his own life, his hardworking middle-class Jewish parents, medical school, his marriage, his wife’s death from cancer, and his children; the unhappy overweight fourteen-year-old girl who ate for comfort no matter how much comfort he tried to give her, and his son, who was twelve and seemed all right. They told each other their feelings and their thoughts, and as they did Daphne realized that although they came from such totally different backgrounds it seemed as if they had known each other all their lives.
They were both the same age and both from New York, but they would never have met the first time they were single, and if they had they would never have thought of going out together. No, not in the Fifties. Their early lives had been set in a pattern made by others. They might as well have grown up on opposite sides of the world.
And yet he seemed to know everything she was thinking, and there was nothing she could not tell him. He obviously felt the same way about her.
It grew dark, and they cleared away the dishes, and she made fresh coffee and they talked some more. It was like an encounter session. They talked all night. He even told her about the first girl he had been in love with, and she told him how she had thought she would never fall in love at all until Richard. Neither of them was hungry or tired. Their midnight confessions were their way of making up for lost time, and also a kind of flirtation. When the sun came up they were still lying on the living room floor by the dying fire, leaning on piled up cushions, finally peaceful and exhausted.
It had snowed during the night. The dogs had gone out through their dog door and were frolicking in the drifts. Daphne and Michael went outside and breathed the crisp, cold air. Plumes of smoke rose from their breath. It was very early and very still. He took her hand, and then they turned and kissed each other. It was as if they had sealed a pact, but she was not sure what it was.
She made scrambled eggs and toast and they ate hungrily. Then she gave him Matthew’s unoccupied bedroom to sleep in, and shaving things and a toothbrush and clean towels, and she went into her own bedroom, and they both slept until early afternoon. Day and night were upside down. They had a glass of wine. The Sunday paper was there, its bulk tied up with string. She looked at him and thought she had never been closer to anyone in her life, and they had never made love … but they would. She was sure of that. But now she had to take him to his train.
“Could we have dinner together one night this week in the city?” he asked.
“I’d love that.”
“I have to get up so early in the mornings … what about Friday? I have a car, so you take the train in and I’ll drive you back.”
“Perfect.”
And then he would stay over.
On Monday Daphne sent Chris flowers, and wrote on the card: Thank you for the wonderful dinner and my new friend.
By Wednesday both Chris and Annabel had called to find out what was happening. Daphne said she thought this probably meant she was dating. She laughed when she said it, because she had always thought dating was so different when you were grown up.
On Friday she met him at his office after work and they went to Woods, a plain, pretty little place with expensive, plain, pretty food. They talked as though the five days they had been apart had been endless and there was an enormous amount to catch up on, although nothing much had really happened to her. It was just that all week whatever she thought of she had saved for him.
After dinner he drove her back to her house in Connecticut. She had expected to be nervous. After all, this was the bed she had shared for so many years with Richard, and she had never done anything with another man but Richard in her life. But she wasn’t nervous at all. Michael was the one who seemed nervous, but only for the first moment before he touched her.
Lying beside him afterward, warm and happy, Daphne thought perhaps she was falling in love with him. In her old world that would have meant that he was in love with her too, and had Serious Intentions. She didn’t know what it meant in this new one.
They both had children. His weren’t away at school, so he had different responsibilities than she did. She lived in the country, so there was the problem of a commuting romance. She couldn’t stay overnight at his apartment because of his children, and he started his office hours so early and ended them so late that he couldn’t stay at her house during the week. Of course they would have dinner together a few nights a week, but that was all. They only had the weekends. In many ways it was like being back at college again, and that was very strange.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
But even though she could tell him anything, she didn’t know how to tell him that, because there was nothing either of them could do about it. Getting engaged to someone she’d only had two dates with was more like college than she could bear.
“I’m thinking about you,” Daphne said, and burrowed her head into his shoulder. She didn’t say anything more.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Waiting for the date of her operation, Emily found herself spending a lot of time looking in the mirror; gently pulling up her cheeks, smoothing out the skin of her neck, trying to imagine how she would look with her new face. She couldn’t help remembering those times so many years ago, during her nervous breakdown, when she had peered at her imaginary scar, the product of her anger and confusion, and had felt herself disfigured. Now there would be real scars, but they would be tiny, and most of them hidden inside her hair. Dr. Winthrop had warned her that she wouldn’t look twenty again, only like herself but refreshed and better; and she had told him firmly that she had no wish to look or be twenty again.
He was doing everything; her forehead, her eyelids, and the lower part of her face including her neck. When he told her he could do all that she was mildly insulted, because she hadn’t thought there was that much wrong with her, but then she decided that as long as she was going to suffer she might as well do as much as possible. Although the nurse had given her a three-page typed description of what was to be expected Emily made him tell her everything he was going to do, in detail. He seemed a little surprised, and she decided most people were too squeamish to want to know. But she did; it was her face.
“Are you just pulling up the skin or also doing the muscles underneath?”
“I’m doing the muscles too, of course.”
Good. Then the improvement would last longer. He asked her if she wanted general or local anesthesia and she said local. He looked pleased,
and told her most patients didn’t remember anything afterward anyway. She would be in the hospital for three days, and then Peter would take her home. She stocked up on soft foods, because it would be uncomfortable to chew, and imagined herself looking like a chipmunk. Dr. Winthrop said she would be able to go anywhere looking normal by three weeks after the operation. It didn’t sound so terrible. She wasn’t even scared.
But then, it had happened so fast she hadn’t had time to worry. Suddenly she was in the hospital, about to be made new. Nobody had bothered to send her flowers, and her room was bland and impersonal without them. Emily supposed people only sent flowers if you were sick; a facelift didn’t count. It was strange to be sitting here all alone, waiting for tomorrow, feeling perfectly well and knowing you’d wake up feeling rotten. She could hardly wait.
Early the next morning a nurse gave her a shot and told her not to get out of bed again. Then they came and took her down the hall and in the elevator on a rolling stretcher, and then she was in the operating room. Her doctor had to introduce himself because he was all in his operating costume, swathed in pale green so she couldn’t see anything but his eyes. He asked her if she would mind putting her hands down for a minute. She said sure, and even lay on them, feeling happy, wanting to be more than cooperative. Behind and above her the doctors and nurses were talking about what they’d done that weekend, joking around, acting like people in an office. They acted as if she wasn’t even there. It seemed so casual to them, but she was going to be cut up, and that made her a little nervous. There was a large clock on the wall, but she couldn’t see the numbers because things were blurry. Closer, she could see her Before Pictures taped up.…
She heard instruments clicking and people talking, but now they were talking about what they were doing to her. She was suspended on the cloud of her drugs and couldn’t feel a thing.
“Turn her on her side, please …”
It was boring and she dozed. She awoke and listened to some more of it.
“Now I’m going to do her eyes.”
I certainly want to miss that, she thought, imagining seeing the blood, and drifted away again.