by Susan Isaacs
“I’m not going to headquarters. I’m meeting Bill in Rochester this afternoon.”
“To tell him?”
“No.”
“You’re staying on?”
“For now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I guess it slipped my mind.” He glanced down, at his sock, not at me. “I’ll wear the brown loafers.”
“When will you be back?”
“How would I know?” While I stood to get his loafers, he filled his pockets with coins, keys, handkerchiefs, a billfold. “Now come on,” he said. I stood before his closet, shaking. “No scenes. I mean it, Marcia. This is my affair. Don’t keep trying to inject yourself into the middle of my life.”
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
“Why are you being so melodramatic?” he asked and brushed me aside. “I have a nine o’clock plane to catch. I’ll manage my own shoes.”
He did manage his loafers, but I had to fetch his suitcase since it was on the floor of his closet, way in the back, under his sneakers and boots. As I handed it to him, his mouth twisted a little in annoyance. Now he had to speak again.
“Thank you,” he muttered and then began packing, slapping down precise piles of shirts and underwear, smoothing long ribbons of ties over them. He filled one corner with political mint mouthwash. Another he stuffed with a very social, special-occasion English Fern cologne.
After those days and nights watching him lie in bed naked, magnetic, faintly animal, I was stunned to see his civilized magic again. I had forgotten how seductive he could be in a white shirt and tie. Jerry’s panache had remained intact. The stewardess’s smile would turn genuine as he boarded the plane. I began to cry.
“I can’t believe you’re carrying on like this,” he said as I followed him to the door, tears pouring down my face. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been away.”
“Jerry,” I managed to say, “can’t we talk straight to each other?”
“See you,” he said and marched out the door.
A few minutes later, still weepy, I called my cousin Barbara, telling her it would be nice if we could talk.
“Don’t cry, Marcia,” she said, pressing a handkerchief into my hand. She had dashed into Manhattan from Long Island without even inquiring what I wanted to talk about. I patted my eyes with her monogram, letting the big D of Drexler absorb most of my sadness. “Why am I saying that?” she asked. “That’s stupid. Go ahead. Cry.”
“Not here.” I glanced around the restaurant where she had suggested we meet. The waiters were all formally dressed. The silverware was etched with a coat of arms. I tucked the handkerchief into my sleeve. I tore my roll in half.
“Don’t be silly. Ridiculous, pretentious place. Look at them,” she said, motioning her head to the busboys, who wore footmen’s uniforms. “They look like Cinderella’s mice.” She smiled and patted my hand. She turned her eyes away as I coated my roll with butter. “If I ever find out I have a fatal disease, I’m not going to fritter away my last days surrounded by loved ones. I’ll lie in bed and have a team of private nurses feed me banana cream pie.” Her dark eyes narrowed a little. “Your weight never shows, does it? It never did.”
“Of course it shows. But it’s all below the waist. If I were a Victorian, with those huge skirts and dark bedrooms, everyone would think I was the most adorable, delicate thing since the invention of the doll. But—”
“But you never got really fat.”
“Yes I did.”
“Not serious fat, Marcia. Not big-time stuff. I remember, my mother would always give you seconds on the starch. She’d say, ‘Have some more noodle kugel, darling.’” Barbara’s imitation of her mother’s warbling, refined tones was nearly perfect. “And then she’d look at me and shake her head before I got up the nerve to ask for more. She’d say, ‘No, Barbara. You’ve had enough. Marcia needs a little extra. Her shoulder blades stick out.’”
“So did my behind. And you know I can carry ten pounds on each hip. Even Jerry says—” My words choked in my throat. My eyes began to fill again.
“Tell me everything,” Barbara said softly. I did, pausing two or three times to sniffle back a potential torrent of tears. “Marcia,” she murmured, when I had finally finished delineating my woes.
“What?”
“Do you want to be fair?”
“Fair?” I asked. The waiter came with a platter of cold asparagus. Each spear was the same size, as if one perfect asparagus had been cloned. He gave me six. Barbara got eight but didn’t seem to notice.
“What I mean,” she said, in her slow, easy voice, “is do you want to have an objective discussion about Jerry or do you want to sit around and attack him?”
“How would you attack him?”
“I’ll get out my list.”
“Let’s make it objective.”
“Okay. Well, he’s spent the last few weeks being threatened on every level. Really, Mar. First his job. Then his health. On the one hand he knows his back will get better, but on the other he sees himself lying in bed, dependent, for the rest of his life. And then you, his woman—I mean, from what you said, it was obviously upsetting to him that you had had an affair with that Lyle.”
“The word ‘affair’ makes it sound so glamorous. It wasn’t.”
“But does Jerry know that? Did you ever tell him going to bed with this Lyle was a great big zero? You didn’t, did you? So here is Jerry, feeling down and out and probably worried sick that at any moment you’re going to run off with this terrible person with biceps.”
“Why would he think that?”
“Why wouldn’t he? What had you really said to reassure him?”
“He knows how I feel about him. Anyway, Barbara, he could have any woman he wanted. Anyone.”
“But he wants you. He’s living with you, Mar. God, at his age, on his salary, what’s he going to do with hundreds of women? You make such a production about his looks. I can’t tell you the number of men I’ve heard about, horrible looking, like turtles, who run around on their wives. You’re setting up false—”
“Barbara.”
“What?”
“Don’t be fair.”
“All right. But give me a minute to work up a vicious streak. See, I just close my eyes and imagine my mother’s voice.” She actually shut her eyes and leaned her head back. Her hands, like a medium’s, remained on the table.
Barbara’s fingers were devoid of the gems my Aunt Estelle would have loved to have seen her wear. She wore only a thin gold wedding band. However, her handbag, which she had dropped to the floor as she sat down, was probably made from the jowls of a minute Chilean reptile and no doubt cost as much as a decent diamond. And one wall of her room-sized closet was lined with shelves for her handbags.
“Okay,” she said, opening her brown eyes, “he doesn’t want to get married. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Very good, Barbara.”
“Thank you. I am my mother’s daughter, you know. Should I go on, or do you know what I’m going to say?”
“That there’s something wrong with a man who refuses to even consider a commitment.”
“Exactly.”
The waiter came and made a slight bow. “Ladies,” he said, looking at Barbara. He set down a platter of seafood salad, tiny white bits of lobster and crabmeat, dainty scallops mixed with a minuscule dice of celery, like a mound of pearls and scattered emeralds.
“But to tell you the truth,” I said, “I’m not sure marriage is such a great idea either. I mean, we’ve never really discussed it because I never found it all that appealing.”
“You did once,” Barbara said, serving me a generous portion of seafood salad.
“Come on. I was just doing what I had been programmed to do, to marry a doctor. If we hadn’t been divorced, I’d be following the rest of the programming. I’d probably be out right now, getting my eyelashes tinted.”
“That’s not fair, Mar. Do I get mine ti
nted?” She blinked her dark, thick lashes at me. “Anyway, it was more than programming. You and Barry had a lot in common.”
“Only sexually.” For an instant, a flash of memory blinded my consciousness: Barry and me making love in the warm sea, on our honeymoon. I felt a flush. I crossed my legs and shifted about in the chair. The memory faded.
“And what about you and Jerry? Your dominant theme is his looks. I mean, all I get from you is a feeling that you’re enormously attracted to him. But that’s enchantment, not love. He may have the best profile in the world, but what good will that be ten years from now?”
“Barbara, come on. I could skip lunch with you and go over to your mother’s and get the same argument.”
“Marcia, what does he really give you?”
“He cares about me. He’s interested in me.”
“What else?” she demanded.
“What else is there? He’s intelligent. I enjoy his company. We have loads in common. I mean, there’s always something to talk about, and I can talk as his equal. There’s none of this ‘How was your day, dear?’ crap.”
“Why is that crap? When Philip comes home from school, I always ask him that.” Philip taught at New York University Law School. That was in the mornings. He and Barbara tried to spend the afternoons together, unless she had a date with a friend or he had to see one of the Drexler bankers or brokers to decide what to do with his latest million.
“Does Philip ask you the same thing?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you say? How do you answer him?”
“I say I had a fine day.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, Marcia. I really did. I do. I know that doesn’t particularly appeal to you, but it’s the truth. I am”—and she raised her thick brows in a mischievous leer—”happily married.”
“But how can you make a career out of it? What do you do with yourself all day? I mean it, Barb. I’m not being condescending.”
“I know you’re not. I’m busy. I read, probably four or five books a week. I spend time with my friends. I work for four different charities. What do you think is more productive, pushing papers in an office all day or raising money for the Israel Museum and working with a cerebral palsy child, teaching her how to put on a coat? Which benefits society more? And then I have the boys and Philip.”
“And that’s enough?”
“Yes. Why should I go out and open a cookware boutique or something like that and work six days a week selling soufflé dishes to strangers? Why? I don’t need the money, God knows.” We both smiled. “And what’s so intrinsically fascinating about pots and pans—or French lingerie or silver jewelry?”
“Maybe it’s stimulating to run a business. Maybe it’s important to know you can survive and thrive by yourself. Be your own woman.”
“But I am my own woman. I have no doubts about my own competence.” She pierced a piece of lobster and held it aloft. “Anyway, it’s far more stimulating to go to lunch with a friend and discuss Virginia Woolf than sell omelet pans. And it’s a hell of a lot better going to the galleries in Soho than taking some half-assed master’s degree in counseling so I can spend the rest of my life listening to obnoxious teenagers. I’d rather spend the time with my own children. They’re delightful company. Well, most of the time.”
“What are you saying, Barbara? That women shouldn’t work? I can’t believe you really think that.”
“No. I’m just saying that marriage is better.”
“It may be if you’re working on an assembly line and doing something meaningless and mechanical, although even then you’re on your own. But what about me? I have a fascinating, important job. I’m not selling French lingerie. I’m making actual contributions to the way this city is governed.”
“Is it enough, Marcia?”
“Is what enough?”
“Your job. It may be wonderful, satisfying, exciting, but what about you as a human being?”
“Why are you setting up a conundrum that’s impossible to untangle? It doesn’t have to be either-or.”
“All I know, Marcia, is that I see women, friends of mine, taking all sorts of jobs—market researchers, administrative assistants—that contribute very little to the well-being of anyone…. Wait, let me finish. They work eight-ten hours a day and come back to their children so exhausted they barely have strength to push the kids away. Is that meaningful? Is that being your own woman? Because if it is, I think it’s a crock.”
“Don’t you think your perspective is a little off? I mean, being married to Philip, never having to do all those menial, repetitive jobs like laundry, washing floors, grocery shopping. If I had a choice of staying home and ironing or going out and selling negligees, I’d be up to my ass in nighties. Anyway, we’re talking specifics here—or we were. My job is wonderful. Your marriage is wonderful. Maybe we should just be thankful and order dessert.”
“I can’t have dessert.”
“For God’s sake, Barbara. What’s the difference? You’re gorgeous no matter what you weigh.”
“No I’m not.”
“If you worked, you’d have a better self-image.”
“Well, you work. How is your self-image?”
“That’s mean, Barbara. That’s as mean as when you wouldn’t lend me your black evening bag.”
“When was that?”
“In tenth grade. When Mickey Singer invited me to his brother’s bar mitzvah. Don’t you remember?”
“No. But I apologize. For the evening bag and being mean. But try to understand. I’m not spouting anti-feminist propaganda. I’m not wasting my life. I feel I’m doing very important work, at least as important as yours.”
“Don’t you ever want to break out?”
“Of what, Marcia?”
The waiter returned. “You’re paying for lunch?” I asked Barbara.
“Of course.”
“Then I’m ordering chocolate cake to make up for the black evening bag. I’m going to eat it slowly.”
“You always had a sadistic streak. At least we’re even now. But listen, seriously. You know I love you and I’m proud of what you’re doing. Nothing can change what you’ve accomplished. All I’m saying is try not to live just day to day. Look at the rest of your life.”
“I’m looking.”
“All right. I just have one more thing to say—even if you don’t want to hear it. Marriage can work. It can be fun.”
“Maybe. At the beginning.”
“No. It gets better.”
“Better than what?”
“Marcia, I know what Barry did to you. Emotionally, I mean. But to use that one horrible experience as the standard for judging all men is wrong.”
“I’m not using him as any standard.”
“Yes you are. You equate marriage with Barry, with hurt and humiliation. And that’s why you ran around from one man to another afterward. You were escaping from marriage.”
“Barbara, be serious.”
“I am. You be serious. Then you wound up with Jerry because you can’t take promiscuity anymore, but you’re still safe. Do you know why?”
“Because he’s Irish and a bachelor and therefore won’t want to marry me. Is that your analysis?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe what’s happening to you. Your genes are taking over. You’re sounding more and more like your mother. Next thing you’ll be telling me how the Baroness de Rothschild sets her hair.”
“She doesn’t set it. She wears it short and brushes it back. I met her in Sardinia last summer. She’s darling.”
“Hot shit, Barbara.”
“It’s better than selling soufflé dishes, Mar.”
Fourteen
William Paterno was too swarthy for a red flush, so when he became angry his face purpled, like a giant eggplant. It did so now, even under his television makeup.
“I am not afraid of confrontations,” Sidney Appel had just snapped. “You, Mr. Paterno, have mismanaged
New York City! And you,” he continued, turning his head to Larry Parker, “you, Governor, have mismanaged New York State!”
“That’s a lie!” Parker shot out.
“A lie? If the governor wants to talk about lies—”
“Gentlemen,” the moderator intervened, his western clean looks and bland television voice working to tranquilize the New York crazies, “this is a debate. I have to remind you that we agreed to a set of rules.” He smiled at the camera. His knowledge of New York was negligible, although he had probably been to the top of the Empire State Building.
“That’s fine with me,” Paterno said magnanimously, much less purple than a moment before. He sat on the last chair on the set, next to Appel. This was unfortunate, because his large head looked huge beside Appel’s allover diminutiveness. When they appeared on the monitor together, it looked like a normal man debating Humpty-Dumpty.
“Who the hell asked you, Paterno?” Larry Parker hissed.
His speech writer, standing next to me in the studio, clapped his hand to his forehead and hissed back, “Your mike’s on, Governor!” Parker looked confused, as though someone had yelled at him in another language.
The show’s producer mouthed an enraged “out” as she stepped over the cables on the floor, pursuing the entourages of the three candidates out of the studio. Her assistant, clutching her clipboard as if afraid one of us might grab it, herded us out the door and said, “God. You people behave like children.” She directed us to a waiting room equipped with a set. The debate was live.
“… in the nursing-home industry?” the moderator was asking. Paterno would be eloquent on this subject, so I flopped onto a segment of the long modular couch that clung to the walls of the room. I stretched my legs in front of me and closed my eyes so I would not have to talk with anyone. Jerry had been gone for three days. He had not called.
“The governor seems to think age is a disease he’s immune to,” Paterno was saying. He was performing well. I tuned out the television.
The only news I had of Jerry had come two days earlier, when Paterno returned from Rochester. “I saw your friend yesterday.”