by Rona Jaffe
“Because you’re a writer.”
“No. And I always wondered what your life with Roger was really like.”
“You were curious about my life?”
“Yes. Because I thought I was the only person in the world who didn’t have a real life. And then do you know what happened? The other day I was walking along the street, and it hit me. I realized this is my real life. Every day of it. This is all there is. This is it.”
“How could you not know?”
Alys shrugged. “I didn’t.”
Olivia thought about her cousins who loved danger. They said it made life worth living, but now she suddenly wondered if they needed to risk everything in order to know they were alive. And Roger: did he need his affair with Wendy for the same reason? Push it to the limit. Be ready for that one moment to be caught, to lose. Know you had won, until the next time. Did that mean it was not her fault after all?
They finished lunch and had cappuccino, which always seemed like dessert.
“Now this Wendy, if she’s thirty,” Alys said, “she’s going to want to get married. She’s probably thinking about when she’s going to have a child. At least a husband. And Roger’s not budging. Eventually she’s going to move on.”
“She’s threatening to kill herself over him, Alys.”
“He’s got to be hating it.”
“Did you ever do anything like that when you were young?”
“Once,” Alys said. “The guy would never see me again.”
“He wasn’t Roger,” Olivia said.
They parted in the street outside the restaurant with a hug and promises not to wait so long before they saw each other. But Olivia knew they wouldn’t keep them. “Call me and tell me what happens with you and Roger,” Alys said. Was it possible? She seemed almost pleased. She had always been jealous when Olivia was happy and she wasn’t, even though she pretended not to be.
“I will. Thanks again for lunch.”
Olivia took a cab back to her office. She didn’t even like her oldest friend. Alys was superficial and self-indulgent. She always had been. That was why Olivia hardly ever saw her.
But who else could she have told about her domestic crisis? So many of her friends were hers and Roger’s friends together, and this was still a private matter. She couldn’t tell her family, even Jenny, with whom she felt particularly close. She had pretended on the phone with Aunt Myra that everything was fine. She could just imagine the grapevine, the criticism, the “I told you so”s. The last thing she wanted was for her family to know she had another failure.
She realized with a wave of the most intense sadness who was the one she used to tell when something was bothering her, when she was unhappy or upset, when things were not right. Who had always been the one she went to: her confidant, her best friend. It had been Roger.
17
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you and I are having lunch together on a Saturday like normal people,” Wendy said. She was happy and bubbling. She was wearing a black bodysuit under tight jeans with a hole in the knee. Roger smiled indulgently. He wished he weren’t there. He had told Olivia he was going out to do his “things,” but it hadn’t fooled her. He felt as if Olivia were sitting in the restaurant watching them, and at the same time he was wondering where she was and what she was doing.
Wendy had chosen a small new trendy place in the Village that her friends liked. He was sure Olivia had never heard of it and he would be unlikely to run into anyone they knew. The restaurant was not crowded because people were already starting to go to the country for the weekends. Next weekend would be Memorial Day, and after that the summer exodus.
“I’ve taken a house in East Hampton for the summer,” Wendy said. “It’s a share with three other people, but I get every weekend. It’s a much bigger house than the one we had last year. And it has a pool. There are lots of parties to go to.”
“You’ll enjoy it,” Roger said. “You should be with people your own age.”
“They’re not all my age.” She tilted her head. “You could come visit me.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Just dreaming out loud.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Roger said.
“Let’s order,” she said.
He looked at the menu. Everything was greasy and fatty and full of cholesterol. Three-egg omelets. Hamburgers and french fries. Macaroni and cheese. Old-fashioned meatloaf with gravy.
“This stuff looks like what my mother used to make,” he said.
“It’s the new trend in food,” Wendy said cheerfully. “Comfort food. Don’t you love it?”
“I didn’t like it much the first time,” he said. “But except for fabulous chocolate chip cookies, my mother was a terrible cook.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t know it either. I thought that was what food was supposed to taste like.” He waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t.
“Does Olivia cook?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about her, Wendy,” he said uncomfortably. Ever since they had been caught, she had started asking more questions about Olivia, and whenever she did he felt as if she were intruding on something private.
“Does she know you’re with me today?”
“Probably,” he said. Talking about Olivia made it even worse.
Wendy had begged him to have dinner with her in a restaurant, so he had compromised on lunch. He was trying to break off with her slowly, wean her away, not just for her but for himself. But ever since he had told Wendy that Olivia knew about them, there had been a shift in their relationship. Wendy seemed to think that now that the thing he had most feared had happened, and the world had not ended, he hadn’t gone anywhere, she had a chance to win him for herself.
He had told her that if Olivia found out about them the affair would be over, but here he was. Of course that exposed his weakness. It only fed her optimism and her stubbornness. He had stopped pretending he loved her; he said nothing. But she attributed that to nervousness on his part. He had stopped seeing her on their regular schedule, but she could understand why that was wise. He did still see her.
They ordered hamburgers and beer. When their food came they sat there for a while in silence while he tried to think of something neutral to say. “You’re not eating,” he said finally.
“I’m not very hungry.” She smiled at him. He supposed she was thinking that next they would go to her apartment, but he had no real enthusiasm to go there; he just wanted to get away. He felt unaccountably lonely. They had never had a conversation that wasn’t either a highly charged prelude to sex or a discussion about their relationship, and now over a simple lunch he didn’t even know how to talk to her.
“You can do a lot better than hanging around with me,” Roger said. “You’re so pretty and bright. There must be men falling all over you.”
“Oh, yes. There always were. But it never worked out.”
“I’m wasting your time,” he said.
“I love you.”
“I wish you didn’t,” he said.
“But I do.”
Why don’t you just strangle me, he thought. “Do you want coffee?” he asked.
“Sure.”
The waiter took away their barely touched food. “Something wrong with this, folks?”
“No, it was fine.”
“Deep-dish apple pie with ice cream? Rice pudding?”
“Just two coffees.”
The waiter left. “Are you having sex with her?” Wendy asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Has she forgiven you? Is she pretending I don’t exist?”
“You exist, all right.”
“I’ll bet the sex with her isn’t as good as with me.”
“This is an inappropriate discussion,” Roger said.
; “I want to know.”
“There’s no sex,” Roger said. “I sleep in the den. We try not to step on land mines.”
Wendy brightened. “Is she going to leave you?”
“That makes you happy, doesn’t it?”
“Of course. Then you and I could be together.”
“I don’t want to start with anyone again,” Roger said. “I want what I have.”
“I don’t understand,” Wendy said, frowning.
“I know.”
“I realize you and I never had a chance to really know each other,” Wendy said. “It was all so passionate and so much fun. It was even romantic in a crazy way. But we were always rushing. Now you could stay with me longer. She doesn’t know when you come home. You could stay overnight with me. If you knew me you might want me more than you want her. Just give me a try.”
Poor Wendy, he thought. “You and I could never live together,” he said lightly. “Gregory would scratch me to death.”
“You’ll win him over. I’ll win you over. You’ll see.”
He was rescued by the arrival of the waiter with the coffee. For a minute or two they pretended to concentrate on it. He wondered if he was the only man in the world who didn’t know how to get rid of a woman. If he didn’t watch out, Olivia would be the one who left him. He knew he should be more forceful with Wendy, but he was afraid to because a part of him still wanted her. His ambivalence was his worst enemy.
“I don’t have much more time,” he said, looking at his watch.
“Come to my apartment,” she whispered.
“I . . .”
“Just for a minute. I have something to show you.”
“What?”
“It’s a surprise.” She ran her fingers through her thick shiny hair and smiled at him coquettishly. He wished she weren’t so pretty. “You have no idea what it is, but you won’t be disappointed.”
He paid the check and they left.
In the cab Wendy put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his thigh. “I’m your biker babe,” she murmured. “Your motorcycle mama. I belong to you.”
Her doorman greeted them, as always. Roger wondered, as he did now every time he saw him, what he had said to Olivia. He thought how hurt Olivia had been and he could hardly bear to look at the man, not that it had been the doorman’s fault.
As soon as he and Wendy entered her apartment, she started taking his clothes off. “I’m going to ride with you,” she said, “and do anything you want.” She was kissing him and rubbing up against him, and then she was taking off her own clothes at the same time. “Any bitch tries to put her hands on you, I’m going to kill her. You’re the best. I’m yours. All yours.”
She led him into the bedroom. In spite of his resolve and the reluctance he had felt in the restaurant, he realized he desired her almost as much as he had before getting caught. Her body was as enticing as ever; it was only her emotions that frightened him away. Wendy lay on the bed on her back, her pale skin nacreous in the soft afternoon light.
“Look,” she said.
Right above her pubic hair she had gotten a tattoo. In the middle of a small red heart and green and purple flowers it said Roger.
He was suddenly impotent.
She thought it was temporary and was all over him, fondling, coaxing, taking him in her mouth, but he pulled away. It was hopeless. He thought that if his frightened, shriveled dick could dive right up into his body cavity it would have, testicles and all. He stared at the tattoo of his name on her belly and he felt so invaded that he could hardly breathe. He sat up and retrieved his clothes.
“What is it?” Wendy asked.
“I have to go.”
“You’ll be all right soon,” she said.
“How could you do that?” he asked, gesturing accusingly.
She smiled. “It didn’t hurt much. I did it for you.”
He was at the door, dressed, fleeing. She followed him, still naked. “Don’t do anything else for me,” he said. “Do you understand? I don’t appreciate that.”
“Oh, Roger, you’re so silly.”
“I mean it.”
“I thought you would think it was sexy.”
“Not to me,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Well.” Then she started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” He had always suspected she was crazy, but now he was sure of it.
“It’s just a stick-on,” she said. “It will come off in two or three days. I didn’t think you’d freak out.”
He thought he was probably on the verge of freaking out about everything lately. He felt like an idiot, humiliated. He had never been impotent before, and he had no interest in trying again to see if he wasn’t. He only wanted to escape. When he left Wendy’s apartment her laughter followed him down the hall.
“Come back!” she called, and then he heard it turn into tears.
He kept on going.
18
IT WAS SUMMER, hot and unbearable in New York, and almost time for Olivia to take Roger on his significant-birthday trip to the Plaza Athénée Hotel in Paris. The idea that had once seemed so sentimental and generous now seemed to her like a silly charade. Maybe she should call it off. His way of dealing with it had been to avoid talking about it, but she still had the tickets and the reservation. How were they supposed to travel—as friends? To be his friend or his lover was the same thing in her mind, so both had betrayed her. Why should she give him this reward? She didn’t want to pay for Roger’s half. She didn’t want to go with him at all.
Now she remembered how hot it was in Paris in the summer, how in many places there was no air-conditioning, and wondered why they hadn’t thought of that in the first place. When she had planned the trip she had told the travel agent to be sure their room had a double bed. Now, if they did go, she would have to ask for twin beds, an embarrassing change, letting a stranger know more than he should about them, but a suite was too expensive in a place she didn’t want to be in the first place.
He would remember his fiftieth birthday for the rest of his life. It should have been wonderful; she had wanted to make it that way. It was his fault, not hers, that he would remember it as something strained and sad.
In the time that had passed since she had confronted him she had managed to put a kind of protective coating over her wounded spirit. There were hours that she was without pain, even hours that she didn’t think about him. She knew there were other women who could put something like Roger’s affair with Wendy out of their minds and say, Oh, well, that’s just the way he is; but she wasn’t one of them. She wondered if she would ever again be the relaxed and happy person she had been before.
“We should talk about Paris,” Roger said, finally, over dinner.
“I know.”
“I’d like us to go, but I don’t want you to pay for it. You shouldn’t give me a present. I want to pay for both of us.”
“You really still want us to go?”
“I thought . . . maybe . . . we could use the trip as a chance to start over,” he said.
“Reconcile?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never fought with another woman for a man,” Olivia said. “I don’t know how. It’s not in my nature. Why should I have to do it?”
“You wouldn’t be.” He looked injured. “This has nothing to do with Wendy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sleeping with her anymore,” Roger said. “It’s completely finished between us. I’m just doing a little final persuasion to get her to realize that.”
“Not sleeping with her is a good hint,” Olivia said.
They looked at each other. “I wish none of this had ever happened,” Roger said.
“So do I.” But that doesn’t mean it didn’t, she thought.
“Think about Paris,
” Roger said.
“Like a second honeymoon, or a blind date?”
“Like a courtship. There’s no one in the world I’d rather spend this birthday with than you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Olivia said. How could she not? It was on her mind all the time anyway.
* * *
Kenny called. His cheerful voice seemed like a greeting from another, almost forgotten, life. “What are you doing next weekend?” he asked.
“Nothing much. Where are you?”
“Santa Barbara. Pam and I are eloping next weekend. We just decided. You have to come to the wedding.”
“Congratulations!” Olivia said. “I’m glad. But if you’re planning it and inviting people, it’s not eloping.”
“We like to call it that.” He chuckled. She had never heard him so upbeat. “Should I put you on the list?”
“I don’t know if I can come to California on such short notice,” she said reluctantly. The tension she had been living through these last months had left her feeling exhausted and drained.
“We’re getting married in New York,” Kenny said. “We want the family there, and New York is closer than Santa Barbara.”
“That’s really sweet, Kenny,” she said, touched. “But the whole family’s away. Why do you have to elope?”
“We want to. And they’re almost all coming. Jenny and Paul, Melissa and Bill, Nick and Lynne, Uncle David, Uncle Seymour and Aunt Iris, Aunt Myra, even Taylor.”
“Taylor?” Taylor had always hated New York, which she called New York City—there were too many people, too much traffic, it was big, ugly, dirty, dangerous. She hadn’t been there since Aunt Julia’s funeral, and when she and Tim went to Sam’s bar mitzvah in Cambridge they had taken a flight that didn’t stop in New York.
“Taylor and Tim have to see Uncle Seymour about the store. She’s inherited all Grady’s stock. Now you and Taylor have more shares than anybody else in the family.”