Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

by Ayelet Waldman

  “You said you love me.”

  He reaches his palm out to cup my cheek. “I do love you. You're lovely.”

  At this I prove my immaturity by jerking away and snorting in disgust at the precise moment the waiter is placing my halibut in front of me. He startles and tips the plate, but deftly catches the slosh of beurre blanc with the edge of his linen napkin.

  “Madame?” he says.

  “I'm fine,” I say. “Thank you.”

  When the waiter has set Jack's roasted lamb before him and disappeared I say, “We did not make a mistake.”

  Jack is holding his knife and fork, but he has not taken a bite of his meat.

  I say it again. “We didn't make a mistake. I didn't make a mistake. You're my family and I want to be with you.”

  He lays his silverware down. “William is my family,” he says gently.

  “And me. William and me.”

  “You don't . . .”

  “I do Jack. I do love William. I do.” Even as I hear the words I know how false they sound, how desperate. I know that Jack thinks I am saying them just so that he will not end our marriage. I know that he thinks I am lying.

  But the maddening irony is that the words are true. It is only now when it is too late that I understand that somehow that irritatingly precocious, selfish boy, with his dinosaurs and his daemons, his bicycle helmets and his lactose allergies, has wormed his way into my heart. And more than that. He has given me back my baby by forcing his mother, his mother of all unlikely people, to release me from my festering shame and guilt. Without ever intending to, he even gave me back my father. And yet, I can't help but think it's sort of typical of William to make me fall in love with him only when doing so does me no good at all.

  I say, “Give me another chance.”

  Jack says, “I'm sorry.”

  “Give me another chance.”

  “I can't.”

  “What does that mean? Of course you can. Yes, you can.”

  He shakes his head, and I see all of a sudden that his eyes are damp.

  “Don't,” I say, or not. I'm not sure if I have spoken.

  “I don't trust you, Emilia. I don't trust you anymore.”

  And then what do you do? Because you still have to pay the check. You have to wait for them to clear your plates and bring you your coats. You have to stand out in front of the restaurant side by side and flag down your cabs. You have to decide whether to give a kiss goodbye and if so, what kind (brief, formal, on the cheek). It would have been so much easier just to disappear.

  I have a geographical crisis in the cab. My cabbie and I are conveniently stuck behind a truck in crosstown traffic so there is plenty of time for me to hesitate between a dozen alternative destinations. There are so many places in this city, but only one place I want to be, only one man I want to be with. One man, and one boy.

  I refuse to accept banishment. I will not be exiled. Not now, not when I have finally realized what it is that I will lose. I must somehow prove to Jack that he and his son are my family, and I am theirs. We belong together.

  But until then I have nothing to wear so I'm going to go pick up my goddamn jeans.

  “Just take me to Barneys,” I say. “Madison and Sixty-first.”

  Chapter 30

  It is a long week and Simon's house has never been so sparkling clean. Every morning I tackle something new: cleaning the moldings on the windows and doors, scrubbing the tile grout in the bathroom, polishing the marble tiles in the kitchenette, vacuuming up the dust bunnies behind the books in the built-in bookcases. This last project leads me to Simon's collection of pornographic DVDs and I spend most of one morning eating microwave popcorn and watching men do things to one another that seem geometrically unlikely if not impossible. I feel it has been a learning experience, and I think that if I ever manage to convince Jack to take me back, he will not be sorry.

  Afternoons I spend reading my stepmother books, taking copious notes. When I can no longer stand it, I leave the house and wander around downtown. Once or twice I consider heading north toward the park, but I cannot seem to make the trip. Instead of earth and grass, I walk concrete, and instead of trees and monuments, I look at store windows. There are things down here I want to buy for William and for Jack, but I don't allow myself this indulgence. It would seem craven, and though I know William would not care, that he would be perfectly happy to assemble his Chasmosaurus skull model without worrying whether I was trying to purchase his affection, I don't buy it or the mulberry cashmere socks, the last pair in men's size small, perfect for Jack's well-formed feet.

  I eat a lot. More than a lot. I drink coffee and eat muffins and morning buns, hamburgers and large plates of Vietnamese noodles. I order enough for two in a filthy Chinatown restaurant with bright orange waterfowl hanging in the window and finish everything on my plate. I buy hot dogs from street venders at ten in the morning, before the water in their carts has grown cloudy with hot-dog sweat. I eat at a terrible tourist trap in Little Italy, ordering a plate of pasta smothered in scalding hot cheese and cornstarch-thickened white sauce. This is the only meal I leave unfinished, but I soothe my empty stomach with slices of fresh mozzarella from Joe's Dairy. Simon's scale is the only thing in his apartment that I do not clean, because I am afraid to get close to it, even with a duster or a sponge. I don't want to accidentally fall on top of it and discover I have gained thirteen pounds while in exile in lower Manhattan waiting to figure out a way to make my husband take me back.

  On Thursday night, after a day spent wandering the streets, sitting in cafés, and highlighting sections of my stepmothering books like some kind of crazed fairy-tale bag lady, I cook an elaborate dinner for Simon. He comes home to find his table set with rose-patterned china and linen napkins, a saffron-infused fish soup simmering on the back burner of his stove. I am pounding garlic and parsley into a paste on his kitchen countertop.

  “What are you doing?” he says.

  “Don't worry, it's granite. It won't break. I made garlic mayonnaise. I didn't have time to bake bread, so I got an olive loaf from Dean & DeLuca. Can you rinse the salad leaves?”

  “Wow,” he says, taking off his necktie. “What's with all this industry?”

  “I have a phone call to make.”

  He raises one eyebrow.

  “I've been procrastinating.”

  While Simon rinses arugula and blots it with wads of paper toweling, I find my cell phone and dial the number that I decided to call in the early afternoon but have been avoiding ever since then. Every one of my stepmother reference volumes suggests therapy as an option for the stepmother, and family therapy for the beleaguered relationship. Two even encourage the stepmother to speak individually to the stepchild's therapist. Apparently all the children have them. I have never spoken to William's therapist, the noted child psychologist Dr. Bartholomew Allerton. In fact, I have never spoken about Dr. Allerton except in the most derisive of tones. But I know William trusts this man. I know that every week, when William sits in that office on what I imagine is a tiny little couch, the two of them must do more than just play endless games of Stratego, even though that is all William will say about his visits with Dr. Allerton. Dr. Allerton surely possesses insight into this convoluted and fucked-up situation of ours. If Dr. Allerton will see me, he will help me figure out how to save my family.

  After the voice mail beeps I begin, “Dr. Allerton, this is Emilia Greenleaf. Emilia Woolf Greenleaf. Jack Woolf's wife. William Woolf's stepmother.” I recite my phone number into the telephone. Twice. Then I continue. “I'm calling because, as you probably know, things haven't been going so well with us and I was wondering, I was hoping, that you might consider talking to me, or giving me an appointment. You see the thing is, I really want to, I mean I think I'm ready to.” My pause is too long. “Or I could . . . if Jack would let me . . .” Again I pause for too long and there is another beep and I am cut off.

  “Goddamn it,” I say. I dial again. “Hi, Dr. Allerto
n, this is Emilia Greenleaf again. William Woolf's stepmother. It's just that I really do want to learn how to be . . . better . . . with William and do the kind of things he needs. Or at least not hurt him. I guess. It's just that I think if I could talk to you, I might get some more insight into William and what he's feeling, maybe. Or something . . .” My voice trails away, the voice mail beeps and I'm once again cut off.

  “Fuck.” I dial again. “Hi, Emilia Greenleaf again. I feel really awkward about this, because you probably know that Jack and I are sort of separated, and I'm not trying to go behind Jack's back or anything, but I was thinking maybe you could help me figure out if there's a way to maybe fix things. Because I want things to work out with Jack and with William, and I know . . .” Beep.

  “Emilia?” Simon says.

  “What?” I hold the receiver in one hand while I dial again with the other.

  “Can you spell ‘restraining order'?”

  I pause, the phone receiver halfway to my ear. “Too much?”

  “Uh, you could say that.”

  “Shit.”

  My cell phone rings.

  “Shit,” I say again.

  “Answer it,” Simon says.

  I look at the caller ID. “It's the doctor.”

  “Answer it!”

  “No. He probably thinks I'm a psycho.”

  “Will you please stop acting like a psycho and answer the goddamn phone?”

  Dr. Allerton's offices are lush and impeccably decorated, with only the most discerning disturbed children in mind. The couch and chairs in the waiting room are of some stain-resistant yet luxurious fabric and the toys all look new. The plastic boxes of Legos are full to the brim, the hair on the dolls is still glossy and unmatted, the cardboard boxes of games and puzzles are not dented or torn. Either the noted child psychologist replenishes the shelves of his waiting room on a weekly basis, or the children who wait here are so demoralized and depressed that they have no energy to play.

  It is a few minutes before seven in the morning, and I am his very first appointment of the day. He is squeezing me in, he said last night on the phone, because he is concerned. I sounded “distraught” and “confused” in my messages. I tried to explain to the doctor that I am not confused. I have finally achieved some clarity and it is for this reason that I want to see him, in order to seek his assistance, but after a rather, well, confusing few minutes of discussion, we decided it was better for me to come in and try to explain in person what it is that I am looking for.

  At precisely seven o'clock, the door at the far end of the office opens and a small man pokes his very large head into the waiting room. His head is covered by a pelt of black curls, tight and shiny like a Persian lamb Cossack hat, and his gray beard crawls down his throat into the open neck of his shirt, joining up with his chest hair. I am surprised that William has never mentioned that his therapist is so hairy.

  “Ms. Greenleaf?” he says. “Come in.”

  Dr. Allerton points me toward the couch and sits down on a dark brown leather Eames chair. I sit down and shuck my coat. My scarf I leave on, wrapped loosely around my neck. I duck my chin inside the folds of soft wool.

  “So,” the doctor says, “what can I do for you?”

  I launch into a longer version of what I said into his answering machine, that I am hoping he will help me to understand William better, to be a better stepmother. I tell him that my relationship with Jack is in crisis, that unless I can figure out a way to solve this problem, our marriage will be over.

  “Hmm,” the doctor says when I have finally wound down.

  This is the insight for which I woke up at six in the morning?

  “Hmm,” he says again. Then he scratches his beard.

  I look over his shoulder at the bookshelf where the games and toys are arrayed. There is the famous Stratego that has consumed so many of William's weekly therapeutic hours. I look back at Dr. Allerton. Now he is scratching his head.

  “Emilia,” he says. “May I call you Emilia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Emilia, do you want to be a better stepmother because you think you ought to be for William's sake, and for your own, or do you want to be a better stepmother because you are afraid that otherwise your husband will leave you?”

  It's cold in this office and I bury my chin in my scarf.

  He waits.

  “Both reasons,” I say.

  He nods. “I can give you some general guidelines about being a stepmother. I can direct you to some very fine books on the topic or to the Stepfamily Foundation. I can even give you a few recommendations of counselors with expertise in the area. However, my concern is that you have come to me in order to prove something to Jack, rather than out of a real desire to improve the situation.”

  I think about Jack and about how much I want him. I know that I am here because I am trying to prove to him that I can be what he needs me to be, what William needs me to be. But is that the only reason? I think of William, of his narrow face, his earnest tone, his blue eyes. I see him gliding across the ice of Wohlman rink, his wobbly ankles barely supporting his weight, his determined expression as he pushed forward despite his fear.

  “Emilia, being a stepmother is a terribly difficult job. It's normal to feel resentment toward your stepson, it's normal to feel anger. It's normal even to feel, occasionally, that you dislike him. You can't expect to be immune to these feelings, nor should your husband expect you to be. You can't control your feelings, nor can you control anyone else's. The only thing you can control is your own behavior, your own response to the inevitable stress. That is, if you want to.”

  “I do. I do want to. I just . . .”

  “What?”

  “I just don't know if William . . . how William . . .” I tuck my chin into my scarf again, hiding from the furry shrink.

  Dr. Allerton sighs. “Are you asking me how William feels about you? Is that why you're here?”

  “No. No, of course not. Not really. I mean. Does he talk about me?”

  “What do you think he feels,” the doctor asks.

  I think of the risk William took in coming to my defense before his mother, the gift of absolution he has given me. I see him standing before her, a tattered copy of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile in one hand, a two-foot-tall Giganotosaurus in the other.

  “I don't know,” I lie.

  On Friday I am wandering Canal Street, trying to decide whether my afternoon snack will be cuchifrito or mofongo, neither of which means anything to me, but both of which sound enticing in their own way, when my cell phone rings. I see it is Jack on my caller ID and I am so happy that I rush out of the tiny Dominican restaurant without ordering anything.

  “Jack!”

  “I need your help.”

  Jack is in a Lincoln Town Car circling the federal courthouse. William is with him, throwing a world-class hissy fit. For some reason, surely because he is confident that it is the one request that is guaranteed to queer the works, he has insisted on seeing me. God bless that boy.

  Today is Carolyn's wedding day, and William is not happy. His misery was made manifest in the morning when he threw a tantrum on the way to school, at school when he bit one of his classmates and tried to fling a chair off the roof playground—a fairly pointless gesture as the whole thing is fenced in, but it's the intent that counts, not the result, which was less dramatic and more frustrating than he would have liked—and after school when he kicked Sonia so hard he managed to crack her composure if not her shin. That, quite frankly, astonishes me like nothing else does.

  Once he is home he refused to dress and could not be bullied into his nice clothes. He insisted on telephoning his father. I can only imagine what it cost Carolyn to give in to this demand. Jack tells me that William wanted to speak to him and that Carolyn allowed him to call, and then requested Jack's assistance in convincing William to ready himself for the ceremony. I'm willing to bet she did so through gritted teeth. I feel for her, honestly I do, and not merely because
she has recently been the source of some salvation for me. It must be terribly aggravating to have to request your ex-husband's aid in talking your son off a cliff so that your wedding can go forward peacefully.

  Jack was not successful. Or at least, not entirely. William wept, but would not explain the reason for his tears. He said he wanted his daddy, he refused to go to the wedding ceremony, he begged Jack to come get him. He agreed, finally, to get dressed, but only if Jack would ferry him downtown. Once they'd reached the courthouse, however, he'd refused to exit the car. Jack had tried to pry him loose, but had realized that dragging a screaming child into the judge's chambers was not what Carolyn had meant when she had asked for his help in managing William. Through his tears William had suddenly announced that if Jack could produce me, and if we could talk, then William would go to the wedding.

  “Put him on the phone,” I say.

  “He wants to see you.”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “The ceremony is due to start at five.”

  I look at my watch. “We've got plenty of time, it's only one subway stop.”

  Everything is on my side. My train arrives in the station as I pass through the turnstile, and I slip through the door just before it closes. I have barely enough time in the moments it takes to travel to the next station to consider why William is asking for me now, when it is least convenient for his parents, when it will upset Carolyn's plans the most. Surely that's why he has asked for me because he knows how much this will irk his mother, still, it's funny. He has never accommodated me in this way, and now he needs me so much, precisely when I need him.

  I exit the subway station to see the Town Car waiting for me. I yank open the car door. William is sitting on his father's lap, his face smudged with tears and mucus. Jack's coat and suit jacket are balled up on the seat next to him and the top button of his shirt is undone, his tie askew. He looks beautiful.

  “Hey guys,” I say. “What's up?”

  Jack gives me a this-is-no-time-for-jokes look. William, forgetting that he is the reason I am here, looks shocked to see me, and begins to sniffle.