Other Women

by Lisa Alther

  Finally, in self-defense, she forged her way into a space in which seeming disaster wasn’t disaster, so there was no need for blame. Apparent loss wasn’t real loss. Disasters and losses were illusions, products of limited perception. But there was no way to convey this conviction to someone else.

  “Have a pleasant week,” she said to Caroline, getting out of the Subaru.

  “You too. And thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  Caroline drove up the hill to Lloyd Harris, thinking about Hannah’s saying Caroline could take her to lunch “one of these days.” It sounded as though Hannah thought they might know each other for a while. Or was that wishful thinking? Probably Hannah was like the plumber, and would stick around only until the drains cleared. But at least she’d stuck around this long, a miracle considering Caroline’s behavior. But of course it was her job. But she didn’t have to be so nice about it.

  As she walked in the ER door, Brian came up in light blue scrub clothes. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Hi. I went to lunch at Dooley’s.”

  “With whom?”

  Unzipping her parka, Caroline looked at him, not sure it was any of his business. “With a friend.”

  “I’d hoped we could run over to my house for lunch.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “How about a drink after work?” He took hold of her upper arm.

  “I have to get home and cook supper.” Brenda rushed by, looking quizzically at Brian’s hand on Caroline’s arm.

  “One hour, Caroline. I want you to see my house.”

  Brian’s fieldstone house sat in a forest of birches near Randy Eliot’s, with equally handsome houses belonging to electronics executives on both sides and across the road. Inside, plush carpeting on slate floors, a huge stone fireplace and cathedral ceiling, colorful Na-vaho rugs on white walls, antiques mixed whimsically with Danish modern. The eclectic look Caroline had striven for so valiantly in Jackson’s neo-Tudor house. From the furnishings Caroline guessed that she and Irene Stone would have a lot in common. As she and Brian inspected the bedrooms, Caroline couldn’t stop herself from assigning one to each of her boys. Diana told her she could stay at the cabin. But who knew when she’d change her mind again? The place felt different now that Diana had claimed it. And the deed and mortgage were in Diana’s name, whatever Caroline had invested in time, energy, and money over the last five years. She’d been a fool not to get some agreement in writing. But in the grip of passion, such practicalities didn’t occur to her.

  Out the sliding glass doors in the living room, Caroline could see a swing set, seats filled with cushions of snow. When they reached the master bedroom, Brian made love to her with finesse and enthusiasm on his king-sized bed. Lying in his arms afterwards, she held a pep rally for her heart. Brian was kind and thoughtful, a good lover, a homeowner. Why couldn’t she just fall in love and get on with it?

  As she dressed, she said, “It’s a gorgeous house, Brian. Thanks for showing me.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” he replied from the bed. “Will you come spend a night with me soon?”

  “Yes, sure.” If she worked at it, she could fall in love with him. Wasn’t that the Protestant ethic? With hard work you could realize your aims? Except she was half Catholic…

  “So?” asked Diana as Caroline walked into the cabin carrying a flat cardboard box from the Pizza Hut.

  “What?” Diana wanted to know why she was late?

  “So how’s Hannah?”

  “Oh.” Caroline smiled, stepping out of her snowmobile boots. “She’s fine.”

  “And your anger didn’t destroy her?” Diana set plates and napkins on her butcher block table.

  “Apparently not. Or even affect her.”

  “Does that distress you?”

  Taking off her parka, Caroline yelled down the steps for Jackie and Jason. “I guess it does.”

  “Your secret weapon is a fizzle?” Sharon came slinking out of her bedroom in an old raw-silk robe of Diana’s, doing her Sophia Loren imitation. She’d recently fallen in love with Jimmy Somebody and had scarcely eaten since, in an attempt to turn baby fat into curves no eighth-grade boy could resist. She spent summers in Ann Arbor with her father and his wife, Lauren. She came home caked with makeup and brainwashed into all the standard female affectations. It took Diana and Caroline the rest of the year to debrief her, at which point it was time for her to return to Ann Arbor.

  “Right. If it’s so ineffectual, how come I’ve protected people from it all these years?”

  Diana smiled. “Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true of Cruise missiles?”

  “Jason shot Amelia again,” said Sharon as she took a slice of pepperoni pizza.

  Amelia was a calico cat Jackie found one afternoon walking home from school. He begged Caroline to let him keep the gaunt bedraggled creature. She finally agreed, but insisted they name her Amelia Ear-hart because she hoped the cat would get lost.

  “Did not,” said Jason, glaring at Sharon.

  “How come she ran into the woods howling?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose. I missed the target.”

  “Sure,” said Jackie, nodding and grinning, holding a piece of pizza to his mouth with both hands.

  “That does it,” said Caroline. “Those guns go back to your father tomorrow.”

  “But I didn’t shoot Amelia,” said Jackie, letting his pizza fall to his plate.

  “Oh God,” said Caroline, Solomon of the dinner table, looking to Diana for help.

  “I’m not lending Judy any more clothes,” said Sharon.

  “I thought she was your best friend,” said Diana, serving the boys salad.

  “Not anymore. She’s become a humanitarian this year.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Caroline.

  “Oh you know, she trick or treats for UNICEF. Stuff like that.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Diana with a perplexed smile.

  “It’s boring.”

  “And that’s why you don’t want to lend her clothes?”

  “She leaves them in a pile on her floor.”

  Diana and Caroline glanced at each other. Sharon’s room resembled Dresden after the bombing.

  “Besides, I don’t like to borrow her clothes. They’re cheap.”

  “Sharon…” Diana frowned.

  “It’s true, Mom. She buys them at Sears. And her jeans are Wranglers.”

  “Sharon, you are such a snob,” said Diana.

  “Yeah, Sharon,” said Jackie, trying to stab a radish with his fork.

  “All I’m saying is that I don’t like cheap clothes, okay?” Sharon tossed her head.

  “Lots of people can’t afford anything else,” said Caroline, studying Sharon’s pouty red mouth and green eyelids.

  “I don’t want to hear all that starvation shit, okay?” Sharon stood up, swept her robe away from the chair, and stalked down the hall.

  Diana and Caroline exchanged long-suffering looks. Once the pizza was devoured, the boys returned to their room for homework, and Diana and Caroline moved to the couch. The phone rang. Sharon raced from her room and grabbed it. “Oh hi, Jimmy,” she said in a voice an octave higher than usual. She shot them a look of contempt as she carried the phone into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  “This is going to be our punishment for being lesbians,” said Diana. “We’re going to have to sit here and watch her be transformed into Raquel Welch. You should see what she has on her wall—a Hunk-of-the-Month calendar.”

  “But we’ve set such a good example.”

  “Since when did anyone ever benefit from her parents’ example?”

  “Starvation shit,” said Caroline. Diana gave a husky laugh.

  They sipped their coffee in silence. Arnold was chewing the light cord. Caroline was suffused with a sense of well-being. “Why do you suppose we can’t let our life here together be enough?” she asked, look
ing down into her coffee. “Why have we created all these complications?”

  Diana reached into the basket by the couch for her knitting. “Maybe if you’re accustomed to strife, you don’t know how to accept happiness when it camps out on your doorstep.”

  “That sounds like something Hannah would say.”

  “Do you have to bring her up now?”

  Caroline glanced at her. “I’m sorry. You’re jealous. It’s so farfetched I forgot.”

  “It’s not farfetched. I know whom you think about to cheer yourself up, and it’s not me.” She was arranging strands of yarn.

  Unable to deny it, Caroline asked, “How do you know that?”

  “I can feel it. You’d have to be Darth Vader not to.”

  “Hannah is important to me. But so are you.”

  “Never mind. I can’t stand this. Let’s stop it. I just love you. I want to be with you however I can.”

  “Me too,” said Caroline, wondering if this was true. She didn’t know anymore whom she loved, or if she loved. She wasn’t even sure what love was. The comfort of being with Hannah, was that love? The physical passion with the head counselor, was that? What about the sense of safety and security with Brian? Or the tender companionship with Diana? She wouldn’t swear to it, but she thought she loved them all. Hannah said rather than dwelling on how everyone had failed her, to focus on what they’d given her. But apparently if you did that, if you put aside the anger and resentment and fear, you risked being swamped by love, whatever it was.

  She leaned over and gave Diana a gentle kiss. Putting down her knitting, Diana grabbed her head and turned it into a fierce kiss. “It’s your turn to appear in my bed,” said Diana.

  “Is that an invitation?” She’d thought Diana was running this show.

  “What does it sound like?”

  “I will,” said Caroline.

  “How about tonight after the kids are asleep?”

  “I can’t tonight. I need some time alone.”

  Diana’s face fell. She lowered her eyes, shrugged, and said, “Suit yourself.”

  Caroline went downstairs, anxious at not doing what Diana wanted, but relieved to discover there were limits to her behavior. That she was unable to go directly from Brian’s embrace into Diana’s without at least a bath in between.

  Sitting down at her loom in the corner of her bedroom, Caroline began weaving on her sunset shawl, which was nearly finished. As her hands and feet searched for their rhythm, she reflected that she and Diana were like Scarlett O—Hara and Rhett Buder. Whenever one moved forward, the other stepped back. Diana appeared to want a reconciliation just as Caroline had decided to make things work with Brian. Would they ever meet in the middle, both stepping forward at once?

  As her hands and feet finally settled into their familiar groove, the shuttle flying back and forth, thoughts of Diana and Brian and everything else faded.

  After putting the boys to bed, Caroline went to bed herself. As she fell asleep, she reflected that Hannah wanted to lunch with her, Brian wanted to live with her, Diana wanted to love her, good-looking strangers in saunas lusted after her. Maybe she wasn’t as repulsive as she thought?

  She dreamed of wandering lost along a jungle path. A putrid swamp teeming with poisonous snakes and leeches stretched out on all sides. Vines hung from tangled trees, matted foliage blotting out the sun. She walked slowly and fearfully, glancing from side to side, expecting to see a pile of bloated corpses presided over by Jim Jones. As she looked into the dark twisted undergrowth, the scene suddenly trembled. It wavered in and out of focus like a telescope gone haywire. As she watched, everything became sharp and clear. Hundreds of brilliantly colored tropical birds sat in the trees. The tangled vines became snakes of citron, orange, and scarlet, with silly faces like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. The forest floor was carpeted with garish flowers. Caroline gasped in amazement.

  She jerked awake and lay still, a smile on her face, not moving for fear of dispelling the warm grateful feeling in her heart.

  • PART THREE •

  • 1 •

  Dressed in her down bathrobe, Caroline let Brian in the cabin door.

  “I’m afraid I’m not ready, Brian. We’ve had a crisis. My ex-husband gave the boys BB guns, and Jason has been shooting everything in sight. This afternoon I found a dead robin in the yard.”

  “That’s what little boys are like.”

  “Not my little boys.”

  Jason sat on the couch staring sullenly at the TV, arms folded across his rugby-shirted chest.

  “Jason, can you say hello to Brian?”

  Jason gave Brian a surly nod.

  “Sorry to leave you alone with Mr. Congeniality,” Caroline said to Brian, going into her bedroom to change. She was raising a young murderer. It was all her fault. She’d deprived him of a father. She’d moved him from house to house. She’d had affairs with women. She was about to spend the night with a man she wasn’t married to. No wonder Jason was tormenting small creatures. But what else could she have done? Would he prefer a mother dead by her own hand? There were some situations to which there were simply no solutions.

  As she walked into the living room in jeans and a silk shirt, she discovered Brian on the sofa next to Jason, fanning open a deck of cards. “Pick a card, any card,” Brian was saying like a carnival barker. Jason took one.

  “All right, young man, now look at it.”

  Cupping the card in one hand, Jason glanced at it.

  “Okay, now show it to me.”

  Jason did so, fighting a small smile.

  “Yup, that’s the one,” said Brian.

  Jason giggled. Caroline kissed him good-bye, then went into Jackie’s room, kissed him and smoothed his dark hair. He didn’t look up from his science fiction novel. He was annoyed with her too, but his way of expressing it was her old trick of fake indifference. Upstairs Diana was also pissed off. It was Diana’s week to tend the kids, but when Caroline phoned to say she’d be out all night, Diana reacted to Brian’s name like a mongoose to a viper. Caroline knew Diana cared for her, but Caroline had to get on with her own life. She couldn’t continue to wait around for Diana to tire of Suzanne, because maybe she wouldn’t.

  As she and Brian walked out, she heard Jason saying to Jackie, “Pick a card, any card.”

  “That was funny,” she said as Brian held open the Pontiac door.

  “My kids always used to play that trick on visitors.”

  “Jackie and Jason are pissed off at me, as you could probably tell,” she said as Brian started the car.

  “They don’t want another man in your life?”

  “You got it.” Actually they wanted a father, they just didn’t want her to have a lover.

  Walking into Brian’s stone house, Caroline was struck by the silence. In contrast to the cabin, which was usually crammed with battling children, yowling pets, blaring TVs and stereos, endless phone conversations. Waves of emotion were constantly swelling and breaking against the cabin walls. She looked at Brian, who stood holding cardboard containers of Chinese food they’d picked up in town, looking uncertain what to do next. Caroline almost reached out to take the containers and assemble utensils, plates, beverages. But it’s his house, she reminded herself.

  “Uh, let me take your coat,” he finally said, reaching out. Realizing he held the containers, he searched for some place to set them. He hung up her parka, then led her into the kitchen, where he looked around as though he’d never seen the place. Opening a drawer, he pulled out two forks.

  Handing her a container and taking one himself, he said, “We can each eat half and then swap.”

  Automatically, Caroline took the containers from him and said with a short laugh, “Honestly, Brian, you’re hopeless. Where are the plates?”

  He pointed sheepishly.

  “Do you have any beer?” He nodded. “Okay, you pour the beer while I set the table.”

  She walked across the slate floor into the shadowy din
ing area, which opened onto the living room. Floor-to-ceiling windows gazed out at the night like blind eyes. Hurriedly she pulled the heavy gold corduroy drapes. Then she turned the dimmer switch until the brass chandelier gave off a warm glow. Opening a drawer in the mahogany breakfront, she was pleased to find some of her own woven place mats from Cheever’s. And plaid cloth napkins, undoubtedly chosen by Irene. She had good taste, in accessories as well as in men. There were also candles of many colors. Irene left Brian well equipped. Caroline took a silver candelabra off a shelf, filled it with ivory candles, and lit them.

  Walking around the living room, Caroline turned on three lamps. Wood was laid in the huge stone fireplace. She opened the damper and lit the wood, and it flared up as though long awaiting a chance to burn. Kneeling by the stereo, she picked out some Roberta Flack records.

  Brian wandered in carrying two bottles of Miller Lite. He looked around the living room. “Gosh, it looks nice in here. What’d you do?”

  She glanced at him. “Pulled the curtains and turned on some lights.” It did look nice. For the time being, she’d dispersed the ghosts lurking in the shadows.

  As they ate moo goo gai pan from Royal Doulton plates and drank Miller Lite from Waterford goblets, Caroline asked Brian about his day. He described removing a lung from a construction worker who’d fallen off a roof beam onto an upright pipe. “He was lucky to be alive,” said Brian. “A few inches higher and it would have pierced his heart.”

  “Like a vampire, huh?” Brian was looking at her, expecting something. But what? She couldn’t remember how to behave with a man. She’d never spent time with men in recent years if she could avoid it. She felt his sad dark eyes fixed on her face, waiting, even though she was busy prodding snow peas with her Gorham Fairfax fork. What did he want from her?

  Then she remembered: admiration. He wanted to see himself reflected larger than life in her eyes. That she could provide. She glanced at his delicate hands as he handled his fork. Those hands saved lives, stanched hemorrhages, made incisions, tied stitches. She was filled with admiration. She siphoned some off for him: “My God, that must have been terrifying, removing the pipe with the heart right there, beating away.”