by Susan Isaacs
“Eat your vegetables, Marcia,” he said, indicating my zucchini. “Don’t you think she might have left you alone because she sensed you were enormously competent?”
“Oh, come on.”
“But you’re so self-sufficient. Maybe she felt intimidated by such a strong child. Maybe she felt inadequate.”
“David, a ten-year-old kid may be able to dress herself, but she still needs to feel protected, to know there’s an adult in charge of her life. It’s very frightening to realize that no one’s worrying about you.” I peered at his plate. “You ate your vegetables first. What a good little boy you must have been.”
He smiled a little and shrugged.
“Were you?”
“I guess so. I was one of those solid-citizen types, the kind of child who can always be relied upon to behave, keep busy, and not bother anyone.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
At first he didn’t answer. Then he said, “A brother. He’s two years younger.”
“Oh. Are you close?”
“No.” He paused. “You see, he’s retarded. He’s institutionalized.”
“David, I’m sorry.”
He looked around the restaurant, almost as if to see if there was an emergency exit for escape. But then he looked straight at me and spoke quickly, much faster than his normal measured pace, as if to rush away from his ingrained propriety, to flee from his world where family flaws are not discussed. “I never even knew about him until after my mother died, when I was nineteen. They never mentioned him. They just threw him away. Oh, it was a nice place they threw him in, but it was like he was some disgusting piece of refuse they wanted to get rid of. They never visited. I only discovered him by accident, when I was talking to one of the lawyers about my mother’s estate. He said something about ‘your brother.’”
“My God. You must have been stunned.”
“Shocked. My father denied he existed. It took me two years to get the information from my Aunt Marjorie.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes. I went there; it’s in New Jersey. He’s badly retarded. He can’t feed himself properly or get dressed. But he smiles at me. I mean, there’s a trace of humanity there. I go every few months.”
“Do you think he remembers you from time to time?”
“No. But I take him things. A hat, one of those wool ones with a big pompon. Candy. He seems to like it.”
“I’m sure he does. He must sense you’re someone special, someone who really cares about him.” He looked away again. “What is it, David? Tell me.”
“He looks like me. It’s eerie.” I nodded. “Anyway, enough happy memories,” he said. “Tell me how a nice person like you got into politics.” He waved to the waiter and ordered another bottle of wine.
The next night I had to write a speech about bond ratings, so we only had time for drinks at the Plaza. We sat at a table in a dark wood-paneled room, sipping wine and discussing our marriages.
He and Lynn were third cousins. They met when they were twelve at some mutual relative’s birthday party. They had the same cultural interests, the same passion for riding, even the same straight brown hair and hazel eyes. They knew they were well suited, and everyone was pleased by the match. He never dated another girl—or woman—until after his divorce.
“Never? Not one?”
“No. When did you meet Barry?”
“When I was almost seventeen. But I had dated other boys. I mean, nothing much happened except for some intense kissing, but at least I had a vague idea that boys came in different varieties.”
“Well, I was amazingly naïve. We both were.” As he spoke, I began to sense that they had had more fun on top of their horses than on top of each other.
“Where did you ride?”
“In Central Park or at my family’s place in Pennsylvania.”
“With high boots and those funny little hats?”
“Sometimes. Have you ever ridden?”
“No. And don’t look at me that way. I would never consider it.”
“Never? Just to try?”
“Not as long as there are taxis.”
I told him about my marriage to Barry, and he nodded with polite interest until I mentioned that the only reason we had lasted as long as we had was because of our sex life. “Really?” he said. His eyes widened. His eyebrows lifted. He seemed fascinated.
“Yes,” I said, looking into my wineglass.
I regretted mentioning sex. There was something fastidious about my conversations with David. We were fairly intimate for near strangers, but it was a chaste intimacy. Since the afternoon at the Drexlers’, when he held my hand at the beach, he had not attempted to touch me. He was always the gentleman, unfailingly correct. This suited me, although I was starting to sense that he was waiting for a signal from me to initiate something beyond the talk.
When I looked up, I saw his eyes had that moist, unfocused look of people who are thinking about sex. “It’s getting late,” I said. “And I have a horrendous day tomorrow.”
But I agreed to see him again. The following night, most of the staff members were driving up to Rockland County for a Paterno rally. Several people stuck their heads into my office and I told them I already had a ride; I would see them at the rally. I didn’t. I saw Measure for Measure in Central Park with David. On the way to dinner, we had a fairly heated disagreement about Shakespearean comedy. “Do you have any idea how wrong you are?” I demanded.
“I’m right. I’ve never been more right.”
“Well, at least it’s nice to talk to someone who has an opinion about Shakespeare, even if it’s wrong.”
We had dinner in the outdoor garden of a Czechoslovakian restaurant. I could feel my curls getting tighter in the humidity. I glanced at the strings of colored lightbulbs that looped from tree to tree, then at two cats who meandered around the tables, looking for a friend.
“Watch it, Marcia,” David said.
“What?”
“No cat-food comments. I know you’re prone to them.”
“Just one?”
“No. Come on. Talk to me. Tell me about you and Barbara. Would you like some more noodles?”
“No thank you. I mean, no noodles and no Barbara. If I talk about her then I’ll get onto my Aunt Estelle and from there it will be my mother and then my father’s death and I don’t feel like it tonight. Let’s discuss something frivolous—offshore tax shelters or something.”
“In a minute. Tell me, how old were you when your father died?”
“Ten. Why do you keep cross-examining me?”
“I’m not cross-examining you. I’m not a litigator. I’m just interested. Tell me about him. What was he like?”
“Very quiet. Undemonstrative.”
“Like your mother?”
“No. Look, David, I really would rather not go into it.”
“All right.”
“The weekend before he died he took me to the Museum of Natural History. I just remembered this. We spent hours looking at the stuffed animals. Mainly the birds. Here he was, this little nebbishy accountant with an absolute passion for birds. And I’d never known it before that day. He’d never given any indication about caring deeply for anything. ‘That’s a puffin,’ I remember him saying. ‘It’s a sea bird.’ And I told him it looked like a penguin and he began to explain the differences between the two, and he was so articulate, so self-confident, like I’d never seen him before and … shit, David. Why did I start this?”
I was crying. Not just a couple of tears straying down my cheeks, but a flash flood, so when I put my head down they dripped into my lap.
“Here.” David handed me his handkerchief. “I didn’t realize, Marcia. I’m sorry.”
“No more of this. It’s awful. People are staring.”
“Don’t worry.”
I sobbed, then sniffled into his handkerchief for a few minutes.
He reached across the table and patted my hand. “I had no
idea it would still be such an emotional topic for you.”
“People are going to think you’re telling me good-bye, the way you’re patting my hand, that you’re running off with a tall thin brunette.”
“I only bother with tall thin brunettes when I’m desperate. Anyway, how could I even consider one of them when I have you?”
I stuffed his handkerchief into my handbag. Until that minute, I hadn’t realized I was doing anything that might jeopardize my status quo. I wasn’t cheating on Jerry, I told myself, because David was behaving like a friend. There was no sex. It was like going out for dinner with Barbara or Eileen. He was certainly no threat, no Noreen Ostermann like Barry brought home to our bed. I could imagine David in a tuxedo, in jodhpurs, in tennis shorts, but not naked, sweaty, rolling on top of a sheet. He was too fastidious, too mannerly.
But when we stood on Third Avenue waiting for a cab, he put a hand on the back of my neck and massaged it softly. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you.”
I rolled around the bed that night alone, unable to find a part of the mattress tempting enough to seduce me into sleep. I didn’t desire David, but I didn’t want to tell him good-bye. I could, in my old promiscuous mode, let him take me to bed and keep himself amused; I could remain aloof. It wouldn’t be actually cheating on Jerry since we weren’t married. Technically there would be no adultery because I was a free woman; Jerry himself had determined there would be no ties. My insomnia mushroomed.
The next morning Paterno demanded an analysis of his performance at the previous night’s rally. “You were brilliant, Bill. The best yet.” He nodded, concurring with my assessment. Then I disappeared into my office, put my head on the typewriter, and fell asleep. The telephone woke me at noon, when David called to announce he was making me dinner at his apartment.
And that night, Jerry came home. I froze as I heard him open the door, my hand clenched over a pair of small but genuine pearl earrings Barry had given me for our first anniversary. Only my eyes darted about, like someone psychotic or guilty. I had been caught.
“Marcia,” Jerry said, gaping. “What did you do?” I was wearing makeup. He had never seen me in it.
“Don’t you like it?” I asked, clutching the earrings even tighter and gazing at the loosened knot of his tie to avoid being flustered by his face.
“Sure. I guess so. You look so different. What made you do it?”
“You’re still holding your suitcase,” I observed, licking my lips. The gloss tasted like raspberries. Each time I inhaled, I smelled the moisturizing cream made from—the woman at the makeup counter assured me—the essence of almonds. I desperately needed this balm, she confided, because my skin was screaming for lubrication.
Jerry did a shallow knee bend and put his suitcase down in front of his dresser. His skin was darker than usual, glowing from the upstate sun. He needed no almonds.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. He sounded stunned, as if I had metamorphosed into a different species, a tree or a swan. He stepped closer to inspect me. I shut my eyes so he could see my subtle, creative use of three different shades of blue eye shadow, which the saleswoman had told me would bring out the color of my eyes. I used the time to think of a fast lie.
“I’m going to the theater. With Barbara and Philip.” I opened my eyes. Jerry closed his briefly.
“With makeup?”
“Why not? I’m thirty-five years old. Anyhow, I need color.”
“Blue?”
“I got tired of looking at the same face.”
Jerry ran his hand down his chin and over his neck, as if trying to come up with some urbane rejoinder. He could not. “If you’re going to the theater, why are you wearing all that makeup? You’ll be sitting in the dark.”
“I don’t know. We’ll probably go out for a light supper afterward.”
“Oh,” he said, in a drawing-room-comedy butler’s voice, “madam may be having a light supper after the theater. How divine.”
“Come on, Jerry. I’ve been working every single night. I needed a break. I didn’t know you’d be coming back.”
“Of course you didn’t. And how can an evening with me compare with a night out with the Drexlers. Are they picking you up in the Rolls, my dear?”
“I’m not going to even bother to answer that.”
“Of course not. A person of your refined background wouldn’t deign to get into a cheap discussion with a peasant.”
“Why is it that you can come and go whenever you feel like it, have a night out with the boys two or three times a week if you want to, and I have to stay home, ready for you? Why is that?”
“Marcia, we’re being unfair, aren’t we? I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your social life. Have a wonderful evening with Cousin Barbara. Do give her my love.”
“For God’s sake, Jerry …”
“Au revoir, my pet.” He began to undress, slowly, teasingly, letting his tie drift to the floor, opening his shirt buttons with the self-consciousness of a stripper, keeping his eyes on his audience. “Have a rich cultural experience.”
By the third button, I was involved in his performance. While I cannot recall my thoughts, I’m sure I considered leaving David to watch his salad wilt and catching the rest of Jerry’s show. But something pushed me out of the apartment. I tongued my raspberry lips, whispered a fast good night, and ran on my new high-heeled sandals out of the apartment and down the stairs.
David was waiting for me. “Marcia! Don’t you look glamorous! Come in.”
He was not as tall as Jerry, but he seemed larger because he was broad-shouldered and big-boned. He wore a yellow cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and gray slacks. “I thought you’d be wearing a maroon silk smoking jacket,” I said.
“I’ll buy one tomorrow.” Then, in what was either an example of Ivy League good manners or keen intuition that I was nervous, he asked, “Would you like to wash up after that hot ride uptown?”
“Yes. Please.” He led me down a long entrance hall and opened the door of a guest bathroom. “Thanks.” He said he’d meet me in the living room.
I was not sure whether “wash up” was upper classese for going to the bathroom; my mother had skipped that lesson. But I did anyway, sitting on a cool, sophisticated black toilet seat and studying my surroundings. It was an elegant room, tiled in large squares of black marble and lit by a small bronze fixture. In the sink, in a crystal dish, were tiny spheres of alabaster soap; on the rack, linen guest towels that appeared old and fine and ironed by a maid. I opened the door and continued down the hall toward the living room.
David stood as I came in. “White wine tonight? Or champagne?”
Aunt Estelle had told me never to order the most expensive item on the menu. “White wine will be fine.”
I had expected a big apartment, and it was, but only its size conformed to my expectations. The wealthy bachelor look which I had anticipated from my recollection of Doris
Day/Rock Hudson movies—long, low couches, dim lighting, and stereo equipment that responded to remote-control instructions—was absent. Instead, David’s living room was very much like David: tasteful, pleasant, rich.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
“No. Actually, yes, but I’m not sure why. Let’s not analyze it.”
“Okay.”
I sat on what I assumed was an antique French chair covered in a white brocade. David sat across from me on a long couch upholstered in a nubby dark-blue silk. To my right was a fireplace with an elaborate beige marble mantel. Between us, a beautifully polished mahogany coffee table; on it was a china basket heaped full of raw vegetables and two bowls beside it, full of thick, tasty-looking sauces. I dipped a carrot into one of them.
“Delicious. You did this all yourself, David?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.”
“Okay. I take it back.”
“No, I’ll confess. There’s a store on Madison that does this kin
d of thing. But I’m fixing the steak myself. And I picked out all the wines. What do you want to start with, Montrachet or Chablis?”
Dinner was like that too, filled with choices between good and better. Beaujolais or Bordeaux with the steak? Grapefruit ices or chocolate cake for dessert? Or both? Back to the living room for brandy or a cordial—or should we try the terrace?
Initially, our conversation was less personal than on our other nights, as if we had to fulfill a quota of chitchat before our relationship could move along. We debated the validity of psychohistory. We talked about New York in the twenties, Germany in the thirties, and growing up in the fifties. We even touched on the campaign, at first dispatching Uncle Sidney as if he were a comical villain in a farce. We also dismissed Paterno quickly, because he was too intense, too hungry for the New York that twinkled before us as we sat on the terrace. The city sparkled in the first cool of the evening.
David took a sip of brandy from a snifter worthy of Ronald Colman. “My uncle by marriage is thinking of spending another half million for television time.” It was the first time he had trusted me with one of the details of the Appel campaign.
“He’s panicked?” I asked casually. “The polls?” Normally, I would be leaning forward to seize each word as it tumbled from David’s mouth, grabbing it and sticking it onto my memory so I could hand it over verbatim at the morning staff meeting. But I merely lounged on the wrought-iron chaise, ran my hand over the green-and-white-striped cushion, watched as a cloud floated over the moon, took a sip of orange liqueur, and wiggled my newly pedicured toes.
“He’s beyond panic,” David remarked coolly. “He’s insane. His whole self-image is wrapped up in this campaign, and just because there’s been a little slippage he sees the entire State of New York on the verge of rejecting him.”
“Good,” I said but without my usual primary venom. “The more inadequate he feels, the worse he’ll perform. I can’t wait for the next debate.”
But I could wait. Another debate would mean late nights of rehearsals, of firing questions at Paterno until he became an old smoothie on dairy price supports, Medicaid abortions, and drug-related deaths. It would mean tuna on wet white bread at my desk instead of poached salmon by candlelight.