by Rona Jaffe
“Well, he might have let me work in his store.” She smiled so they wouldn’t think she was too much of a feminist … just kidding, folks. “Incidently, my cookies are butterscotch chip, not chocolate chip, and I also make butterscotch marshmallow chip.” That was for Freddie, the plug so he wouldn’t yell at her afterward. Her mind was beginning to work again and she felt as if the whole thing was happening in slow motion. She thought of telling how Adeline wouldn’t let her into her own kitchen and she had to bake cookies on Adeline’s day off, and then decided it wouldn’t go over well. Better to stick to what she did best. Merv was asking her how she got started, and she was telling him, making her success story sound like Rocky. Now she told how her son and his friend from college had helped her; making it sound like a nice family story. She said she’d thought of her slogan “Cookies Are Love” because she always felt that way when she made her cookies for her children at home. Merv mentioned how nice it was that she still sent her cookies over to the children at the hospital. Then he asked if anyone in the audience had any questions for any of his guests.
A woman who seemed in her early fifties stood up. “I have a question for Emily,” she said; almost timidly, even respectfully. “I always wanted a career of some kind. I had talent in various directions. But like you, I was told to forget about it. Tell me, do you think it’s too late to do something different with my life?”
“It’s never too late,” Emily said firmly.
“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”
Some rustling from the audience; apparently some of them thought it was a forbidden question. “I’m forty-six,” Emily said, taking off a year to conform with the lie Freddie had insisted on putting in the press release. Now there were some gasps, since she obviously looked a lot younger, and some approving murmurs and nods for her honesty.
“Thank you,” the woman said, and sat down.
Another woman stood up. “My question is for Emily too,” she said. “Was your husband supportive when you started your own business?”
“He didn’t have to be,” Emily said. “We were already separated.” Some laughter. “The point is, it’s wonderful if you have someone who’s on your side, but you can do it either way. And why doesn’t anybody ever ask a man if his wife was supportive when he went into business and started to make money?”
There was more laughter, and then … applause! They were actually applauding her; smiling, nodding; the woman in the front row whom she’d taken as her mascot and a lot of others, women just like herself who knew she was just like them. They liked her! She felt so high she might have been stoned. She sat there in her wave of euphoria loving them, those nice people, who treated her like somebody special, who asked her opinion, who laughed at her jokes, who understood. When the segment was over and she had to leave she wished it had been longer. She sailed backstage where Freddie Glick was waiting for her.
“You were great,” he said.
“Thank you,” Emily said. She hadn’t asked him, and she hadn’t needed to. For the first time, she had known.
“You were terrific,” some total stranger said, a man who had something to do with the show.
“Thank you,” Emily said, smiling at him.
All her life she had wanted to be someone, all her life she had wanted to be important. Those endless sessions with her analyst, trying to work it out, to deal with the need and either make something positive from it or make it go away … Perhaps she had wanted to be important because she felt herself so eminently unimportant and valueless that only the approval of strangers could make her whole. But she hadn’t felt herself to be valueless for a very long time now. Yet she loved this; to be in control of that huge mass of people, to win them over. She loved being in the spotlight, she loved doing publicity, she wasn’t frightened anymore. All she knew was that she had finally found what she liked to do, and she was really good at it.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chris knew immediately when Alexander’s affair with James was over. It was not because he had started coming home to her directly after work, and staying home for the evening, because James could simply have been out of town. No, it was because Alexander looked destroyed.
It devastated her to know that the man she loved was so unhappy because of his love for someone else, not her. She had seen him look that way before, long ago, when he thought he would lose her, but now he had lost someone else and having her was not enough. She waited for him to tell her what had happened, wondering if she should bring it up first, and then after several days of this he finally did.
They were having a drink together in the living room before dinner. It was January; dark; supposedly the beginning of the fresh new year, but actually the sad end of the holidays, a time of waiting for spring. She remembered when those long January nights had been a happy time of hibernation for them, together in their domestic tranquility, glad the party season was over. It too seemed so long ago.
Nicholas was studying at a friend’s house. Chris and Alexander were alone. He had taken to drinking vodka these last few evenings, not wine, saying wine tasted acidic. She knew better.
“It’s finished between James and me,” he said.
What did one say—I’m sorry? I’m glad? “I suspected it,” she said quietly.
“He dumped me,” Alexander said. He was trying to keep his tone ironic, but it was full of pain. “He’s in love with someone else. I knew it would happen. I’m too old for him.”
“Did he say that?”
“That I’m too old? No. But I know it.”
“You’re also married,” she said. “There’s seldom a future with a married man.”
He gave a thin smile, looking a little less miserable. “You always say it exactly the way it is. I guess this still is a marriage.”
“It’s our marriage. Limits, liabilities, and all.”
“It’s so unfair for you. Separate rooms, separate lives …”
They looked at each other. She knew him so well. “This time I’m not going back to what we were,” Chris said.
“I know. I don’t mind. I don’t even mind being old if I can grow old with you.”
She smiled. “Yes you do. You mind being older.”
“You always understood me,” he said.
“No. I recently understood you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Before that I was just learning to.”
They sat there for a while in silence. Chris wondered if Alexander expected her to go without sex for the rest of their lives together, or if he hoped she had a lover. He might well ask, or even tell her he wouldn’t mind if she did, but she certainly would never tell him. What she had with Cameron was private, special. It wasn’t just a physical convenience; it was love, friendship, warmth, romance. She wondered what Alexander had had with James. It hurt to think about it, and knowing it was over did not make it hurt any less. If James hadn’t broken off with him nothing would have changed.
“What are you thinking?” Alexander asked.
“That you always have the power to hurt me.”
“But you have that power over me, too.”
“How?” Chris asked.
“By being unhappy,” Alexander said. “I hate it when you’re unhappy, and I always seem to be the one who makes you that way.”
“I’m not unhappy very often,” she said.
“No, you haven’t been for a while.” There was a long pause. He was looking at her oddly, as if studying her. “And if you left me I would suffer a great deal,” Alexander said, finally. “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”
He knows I have someone, she thought. “No,” she said.
She had loved him for almost thirty years, most of her life. At eighteen she had loved Alexander the stranger, the elusive tragic figure, and then later the elusive sophisticated one; and finally the kind, affectionate one who became her husband. She remembered how she had followed him to Paris after he had left her, after they graduated from col
lege. He hadn’t known he was breaking her heart; all he had thought was that he was escaping a place where he didn’t dare live his life the way he needed to. It had taken her six years to have the courage to follow him to Paris, and no matter how unhappy she had been in Paris trying to capture him, and even afterward, nothing had been as bad as those six years in New York alone trying to get over him.
“Remember that trip we took?” he said. “The first one, to the South of France, together, to see if we could get along …”
“And if we ‘got along’ we would get married,” Chris said. “We both knew what ‘getting along’ was a euphemism for.”
“It was more than that,” he said, sounding hurt.
She smiled. “You live your past, I’ll live mine.” She held up her empty glass and he refilled it with white wine. “Are you very sad about James?” she asked. She sounded to herself like a character in a Noel Coward play.
“Yes. But I’ll get over it. It won’t be pleasant seeing him at the office, but I’ll survive.”
She thought that if she and Cameron ever broke up in a way that was not mutual it would be horrendous to see him at the office. But she couldn’t imagine that she and Cameron ever would leave each other. They both had what they wanted. And even if she wanted more, he would never give up his wife and children. Perhaps Cameron couldn’t give a hundred percent of himself to anybody, but he had arranged it so that he would never have to find out.
“And live to love another day,” Chris said.
“I don’t know how you can stand me,” he said.
“I love you.”
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you.”
“We’ve had some lovely times,” she said. “Besides the terrible ones.”
“Yes …”
She thought about all the trips they had taken to exotic faraway places with their son ever since he was just a baby, and the peaceful weekends in the country house, and being together at the end of every day. She and Alexander had never had a fight … except for the night she found him with another man in their apartment when she was supposed to be away. And even then it was not a fight; it was simply one of the “terrible times.” There would always be those. He had learned to be discreet now, but there would be another James some day. Alexander would not change, no more than Cameron would.
“Dear Chris,” Alexander said. “I love you.”
It wasn’t the memory of the good times that kept her with him; it was her obsessive, overwhelming love for him. She would still love him and stay with him if they had never gone anywhere, if they had been poor, if they were still the way they had been at college. It was not all those years they had been together that trapped her here; because every day it was as if she saw him new and was just as glad to be near him. It was not even that they had become each other’s best friend; because she would never stop wanting more.
She had her own independent, interesting life, and her new self-respect, and her exciting, fascinating lover, and she was more than content—she was happy—but none of that changed a thing. If some miracle could happen and Cameron wanted to divorce his wife and marry her, or if Alexander could become straight, and she could have her choice, Chris knew that she would not hesitate for an instant.
There was only one choice.
She would choose Alexander.
And so, no matter how much she had grown and strengthened, and no matter how free she’d become, the core of Chris would always remain what it was: the victim of her dream of him.
Chapter Thirty
It was the end of February, the dreariest, saddest time of the year, but it seemed to Annabel that everyone was happy but herself. Chris had Alexander back, as a companion at least, and he was behaving himself; and she had Cameron too, for the icing on the cake. Daphne was apparently having a romance with that attractive diet doctor. Emma was totally involved in the movie she was working on, still staying at Annabel’s, which was a great comfort, even though they hardly saw each other. Annabel could not get Zack out of her mind.
It was pointless to go on like this, unable to forget him, afraid to confront him again and be rejected. She had to know one way or the other, and then, if he didn’t want her, she could let go. She asked Emma to find out from her friend Kit, who was in his movie, if Zack was involved with another woman yet. The next night Emma saluted her at the door like a soldier, but with a big smile.
“Spy reporting in,” Emma said.
“That was fast.” Her heart sank. Everyone must know about his new involvement but she.
“Kit says there is no woman in his life.”
“Is she sure?”
“As a matter of fact, she had to go to his house last Saturday to work on a difficult scene with him, and Kit always snoops, she just loves to look in bureau drawers and medicine cabinets and things. So she did. And there was not a sign of a live-in female.”
“What about a visiting female?”
“He has only two toothbrushes. Most people do. If she visits, she brings her own.”
“You are a super spy,” Annabel said happily, and hugged her.
That night, when she knew it was nine o’clock in California, she called him; and this time, finally, he answered the phone. The shock of hearing his voice at last sent a jolt of electricity through her. She almost couldn’t speak. His voice was so familiar, so close, that she melted, and her eyes filled with tears. “Zack,” she said, “it’s Annabel.”
“Happy New Year,” he said.
“I called to explain why I disappeared our last night in New York.”
“It’s all right,” he said, but his voice was tight and she knew it wasn’t all right at all.
“No, it’s not. You thought I was out with someone else, but I wasn’t. I was at my best friend Christine’s house, hiding from you because I couldn’t face having you go away.”
There was a pause while he digested this bizarre bit of information. “But I was going to give you that plane ticket,” he said.
“I got it. And then I kept calling you, but you had vanished, and you never returned any of my calls, even when I left a message for you, so I knew how angry you were.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“You don’t understand what?”
“Why you would pull a thing like that. I thought we were getting along so well.”
“We were … that’s why … Zack, it’s pretty damn difficult for me to explain this. You know, you get to a point in life where you can’t stand to be hurt again. I didn’t want to be so involved and have you … I mean, you never even said anything about seeing me again. How could I know you were going to invite me to come visit you for Christmas? You never said anything. I didn’t want to be just a fling.”
“So you made me feel like I was one.”
“I’m sorry,” Annabel said. “It’s been years since I’ve been this honest with any man. I usually make a smart remark. This isn’t easy.”
“I thought it would be a nice surprise to hand you the ticket,” he said mildly. “Sort of romantic.”
Suddenly she was angry at him again. He didn’t seem to comprehend at all. “But what was I supposed to do? Be prepared to say good-bye forever and then be grateful that I was saved?”
“What are you talking about, Annabel?”
“You know movies,” she said. “Remember Love in the Afternoon, when at the end Gary Cooper is going away and then he just pulls Audrey Hepburn up on the train with him? That was fine for the Fifties, always being rescued by the unattainable man, and maybe it’s all right when you’re twenty, but it isn’t all right for me.”
“Did you call me in the middle of the night, when I’m trying to work on my movie, to yell at me?” he said. Now he sounded angry too. “I have notes to do for tomorrow morning. I have to get up at five o’clock. I can’t discuss this on the phone.”
“I just wanted to explain,” she said.
“And you have,” he said. “I’m sorry I insulted you in s
ome way. I didn’t intend to. Goodnight.”
“You didn’t …” she started to say, but he had hung up.
Annabel sat staring at the phone for a long time, so depressed she could hardly move. They hadn’t discussed anything at all; she’d only made things worse. But she loved him. He didn’t even know that—maybe he never had. That plane ticket might have been his way of trying to find out. She still had it, and he didn’t want to talk on the phone. All right then, she would talk to him in person.
She made a reservation for the first flight to Los Angeles on Saturday morning. She left the return open. If he threw her out she could go right home; if not, she could stay for a week. She told Maria and Pamela to mind the store, and arranged for Pamela to take Sweet Pea home with her while she was away. She told Chris and Emma, who wished her luck. She did not tell Zack, who thought surprises were romantic, that she was coming.
When Annabel stepped out of the terminal in Los Angeles she was struck by the heat, the sunshine, the palm trees—this when New York was so cold and gray! It was noon. She took a cab to Zack’s house. All she had with her was a small suitcase and a large bunch of roses.
She had tried to imagine what his house would look like, and now here it was; set up in the hills in one of those Canyons; a rustic, eastern looking house, an anachronism, almost as if it belonged by a lake in Maine. It had a lot of wood on it, and trees around it. It wasn’t even very big. It seemed a perfect house for two people to live in together. Everything was very quiet. There was a black BMW in the driveway, with a normal license plate, nothing cute written on it. She knew it must be Zack’s car, and that he was home. She rang the bell.
Her heart was pounding. In the silence she heard a bird squawk, and then the flutter of wings. After what seemed like a very long time Zack opened the door.
He was exactly as she had remembered, but better. But here, in his own world, he also seemed somewhat of a stranger. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and she had never seen him that way. There were so many things she still had to learn about him. But right now all she wanted to do was to throw her arms around him and hug and kiss him. Instead they just stood there looking at each other, and then she held out the bouquet of roses.