My Three Husbands

by Swan Adamson

  I tried to imagine Tremaynne moving through a crowd the way my dads did. No way. He’s got charisma but, like, no social graces. He’s the way I used to be before the dads moved to New York. When I started visiting them in Manhattan, they forced me to meet all their friends and took me around to parties and openings. Every time I’m with a large group of people I can still hear Whitman saying to me, “Work the crowd, honey. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Talk to people. Mingle.”

  The bustier was killing me, but at least no one could mistake my few extra pounds for pregnancy. At one point I left Tremaynne to go to the upstairs bathroom (the giant one in the dads’ bedroom) for a breather. I unbuttoned the bustier and let everything hang out. It felt soft, mooshy, wonderful.

  I was just coming out of the bathroom when Whitman came into the bedroom. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.” He closed the bedroom door and undid his belt.

  I wondered what it would be like to be married to him. Daddy never revealed a thing about their sex life, but I know it’s intense because I listened in once when they were having phone sex while Dad was visiting me in Portland and Whitman was out in New York.

  Dad Two looked so handsome in his tuxedo. His blue eyes sparkled, partly because he was wearing color-enhanced contacts. He smiled, flashing his perfect white teeth, recently bleached and bonded, as he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants.

  “Ahhh.” He let out a deep orgasmic breath. “My pants were killing me.” He said he was wearing the same size 32-inch waist trousers he had on when he met my dad twenty years earlier. “I suppose it’s like squeezing into an old wedding dress or army uniform.”

  If he could, I could, so I undid the lower buttons of my bustier. “Ahhh,” I sighed.

  We laughed.

  “All right,” he said, “I know I’m just your old faux pa so I can’t object to anything you do. But I want you to tell me what it is you see in Tremaynne.”

  I was used to Whitman’s sudden interrogations. He keeps his questions to a minimum when he’s with Daddy and then pounces whenever he catches me alone. “Tremaynne’s committed to something,” I said. “He’s smart.”

  “But sweetheart, he has no money. You met him in a bankruptcy court, for God’s sake! Don’t take umbrage—”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a literary way of saying don’t be pissed off. Just talk to me about it. Allay my fears.”

  “Well, I can’t, because he doesn’t have any money. The work he does is always for free. For a bigger cause.”

  Whitman sighed. “Yes, I’m sure he’s very noble. As long as someone else is paying the bills. Are you going to support him?”

  My voice rose defensively. “For now.”

  “On what you make at that video store?”

  He meant Phantastic Phantasy, where I work. “I pay my rent. It doesn’t cost that much more for two to eat.”

  “Yes, but—” He turned away, agitated, rubbing his long hands together. “What about the bigger picture?”

  “What bigger picture?”

  “Going back to school. Doing something with your life. Sweetheart, you’re a smart person but you don’t act like one. Don’t you want something more?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. When I was your age I wanted so much.”

  “And you got it.”

  “I worked for it,” he said sharply. “Damned hard, too, because my family cut me off without a dime. And even so, even working as hard as I did, I only got some of what I wanted.”

  “Only some?” I chided him. “You got my dad, didn’t you?”

  “I was lucky to meet your father,” he admitted. “He wanted many of the same things I did. That’s how true partnerships work.”

  “Are you saying I’m incapable of forming a true partnership?”

  His voice turned steely. “Don’t get angry with me just because I’m being frank with you. Your biological parents accept everything you do. I don’t, but I always feel like I have to keep my mouth shut.”

  “You generally get your point across,” I said.

  “Okay, the point is this: You’ve made two mistakes already. You’ve chosen major losers. In both cases, you said that you loved them.”

  “I did love them. They just turned out not to be right for me.”

  “And then, bang, you’re divorced as fast as you were married. Why can’t you just live with Tremaynne for a while? Why do you have to marry him?”

  “Because that’s what we want to do.”

  “Why?” he asked sharply. “It can’t be for the tax benefit.”

  “Because we want to be together. We love one another.”

  “You can be together without marriage. You can love each other without marriage. That’s what your father and I have done for twenty years.”

  “Only because you couldn’t get married.”

  “Try it out for a year or two,” Whitman suggested. “Maybe it’s nothing more than sex.”

  “It’s more than sex,” I said.

  “He doesn’t look like he’s any good at it anyway,” Whitman said.

  I let out a squawk of boy-are-you-wrong laughter. “If you don’t like him,” I said, “why are you so gung-ho for us to go on our honeymoon with you and Daddy?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like him. I know nothing about him. Except that he seems extremely ill at ease in my presence.”

  “You intimidate him.”

  “I’ve never intimidated anyone in my life,” Whitman scoffed. “I’m one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

  “I know that,” I said, “but Tremaynne doesn’t. His dad used to beat him. So he’s, like, wary of authority figures.”

  “Sweetheart, don’t, like, hold this against me. I’m just asking, okay? But what income level does Tremaynne come from? Is he from the lower-middle-class like your other husbands?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t judge people that way.”

  “I’m not judging him. I know nothing about him. I’m trying to place him in some kind of socioeconomic milieu that might help me to understand him better.”

  “You’ll just have to get to know him. You’re a lot alike. You both have strong opinions about things.”

  Whitman opened my purse and extracted my cigarettes. He shook one out for himself and then one for me. He hadn’t smoked in five years, so it had the feeling of a special ceremony. Like a drug ritual. Holding his pants up, he went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water. Opened the sliding glass doors to the balcony. Threw back one corner of the slippery yellow silk duvet and motioned for me to sit down beside him on the enormous bed he shared with my dad.

  Whitman looked at me before putting the cigarette between his lips. “Promise you won’t tell your father?”

  “Promise.” I gave the oath, then lit our cigarettes. Whitman closed his eyes and inhaled, coughing softly.

  “Venus,” he said, “your dad and I have lived together for twenty years. We can’t get married. We’re not considered morally or psychologically fit to control our own destinies.” Another inhale. “Now I want you to think for a moment about what it’s like to be in our position and to see you, our daughter, going through marriage after marriage.”

  “Are you pissed off with me because I can get married and you can’t?”

  He thought about it. “Maybe. A little. Because you don’t seem to know or value permanence.”

  I flicked my ashes into the glass he was holding. “Maybe that’s because I never had much when I was growing up.”

  “Get over it! You had your mother and you saw your father at least twelve times a year.”

  “Wow, twelve times a year,” I said, remembering how simultaneously excited and angry ten-year-old me would be when I was about to see my dad again.

  That anger was my worst enemy. It was evil. It lay in wait like a big black boiling-mad monster that would just suddenly rear up and grab me. All sorts of things set it off. Res
entment was a big part of it. Daddy claimed to love me, but he didn’t love me enough. I wanted him to think of nothing and no one but me, and he didn’t. When he wasn’t there, I felt like I was being punished somehow. The punishment was his absence. And the time we had was so short. We saw each other every month. Either Daddy flew out to Portland for a long weekend or I flew out to New York for a week. In Portland I had him all to myself, for three paltry days. In New York I had to share him with Whitman, and I had to spend my days with Whitman in the apartment while Daddy was at work.

  Three days or a week, it was never enough. The world was an entirely different place when I was with Daddy. He plucked me out of the cruddy garage-sale life I lived with Carolee, that world of used but “perfectly good” clothes that never quite fit and toys that were always missing one critical part so you couldn’t play with them.

  I wanted to savor every moment with Daddy. But the monster wouldn’t let me. I’d be in some wonderful spot with Daddy, having fun, and suddenly Carolee’s bitter, wine-slurred voice would echo in my ears. I’d hear her cursing and complaining about him, about how rich he was, or they were, and how poor we were. And then my own music-box of resentments would start to play. The terrible public school that I had to go to. A school where I learned nothing, was afraid for my life, and had no one to protect me. There was no one who understood what I was going through, or cared enough to do something about it. There was no one who gave a shit about what happened to me day after terrifying day as I eluded gangs of girls out to rob and beat me up and boys who threatened that they were going to “get” me. Daddy was the only one who could save me from all that, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Instead, he lived a fun life with Whitman in New York.

  The monster would grab me by the toes and yank me down to his lair. From a sunny moment of having fun with Daddy, I’d suddenly disappear into a black hole of rage. I’d spend hours stewing in the dark stinking sludge with the monster, thinking up ways to punish Daddy, or Whitman, or both of them, and Carolee, too. Someone had to pay for my misery. Otherwise I’d have to accept it as an everyday part of my life.

  I wasn’t that angry ten-year-old girl anymore, but every now and then I felt her kicking, like a baby, wanting out. She was there now, wanting to scream at Whitman, but I clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Your dad and I lived like paupers in New York,” Whitman was saying, “so we could fly you out there, and have your dad fly back here, and pay Carolee alimony and child support.”

  “I’m sorry I was such a financial burden,” I said.

  “I don’t want to get into a blame game here,” Whitman said. “I just want some assurance that you know what you’re doing. That you’ve actually thought about it. That you aren’t just rushing into this marriage because you can’t live without having a man around.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I say, Whitman, you won’t believe me.”

  “Venus,” he said, “I’ve been watching you since you were five years old. I’ve seen how you behave. I’ve seen how you make your decisions and present them to your parents as faits accomplis.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t ask for approval or advice; you just tell them what it is you’re going to do. Quit school. Become a model. Get married. Get divorced. Join the army. Be a lesbian. Get married. File for bankruptcy. You’re an only child, so they give in to you. They’ve never put any limits on you because they want to believe that you know what you’re doing.”

  “This time I do know.” I got up and paced around the big bedroom. “Tremaynne and I love one another. We want to be together.”

  “Okay.” Whitman held up his hand. “The next question is, what are you going to do for a ceremony this time?”

  “It’s about time you asked,” I said. “We’re writing our own.”

  “Well, don’t forget there’s a grammar and a spell check on that computer I gave you. Next question: Where is it going to take place?”

  “At my mom’s. I told you. She told you. At two in the afternoon.”

  “Her place is awfully tiny,” Whitman said. “How about if we did it here? It could be very pretty. What are you wearing by the way?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Doesn’t Donna Karan have some simple white dresses this season? Jackie Kennedy sort of nineteen-sixties A-lines. Maybe we should go down to Saks and find something that covers at least some of your tattoos.”

  “I don’t want a suck-ass dress from Donna Karan,” I lied. “I’ve got everything all planned out. My way.”

  “Okay. Next question. This event is to take place on July Fourth. Doesn’t that seem a tad inappropriate?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s such a patriotic day.”

  “Carolee had a chart done. The astrologer said the Fourth is auspicious for me.”

  “Is this going to be one of Carolee’s pagan ceremonies?” he asked cautiously.

  “Sort of. We’re planning everything, me and Tremaynne.”

  “Tremaynne and I. And what about the reception?”

  “A big costume party.”

  “What about Tremaynne’s family?”

  “He doesn’t want anything to do with them.”

  “Oh.” Whitman dipped his cigarette into the glass of water and watched it fizzle out. He stared out the glass doors. He didn’t say anything. I thought maybe I’d pissed him off.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I was just wondering what I would do if I could get married to your dad. I mean really married.” He turned to me. “I was raised so differently from the way you were.”

  By which he meant his family was rich and had come over with the Mayflower—the ship, not the moving company. Daddy said the Whittlesleys were one of the oldest families in Boston. That’s about all I knew. Whitman rarely talked about his family.

  “You know, I used to get into huge fights with your dad about you,” Whitman said.

  I waited for more, always eager to slurp up any emotional crumb he might toss my way.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” he said. “I’m the only person I know who identified with Joan Crawford in Mommie, Dearest. Not the coat-hanger thing. No. Her strict sense of order and discipline. Everything you didn’t have when you were growing up. I worry that you’re just going to drift through life. Like a jellyfish.”

  I put my arms around him and kissed him on the lips. He obliged with his usual chaste pucker. “Don’t worry, Daddy dearest,” I said. “I’m a big girl now.”

  “Okay, time to suck in the guts.”

  He was zipping up his pants and I was buttoning my bustier when the bedroom door opened and Tremaynne walked in.

  Later that night I barged like a mobster into my mom’s house and screamed, “Just what the fuck did you think you were doing showing up in a fucking clown suit?”

  Her face had that wincing, please-don’t-hit-me look that makes me even madder.

  “A clown suit!” I raged. “Did you think it was funny or were you trying to humiliate the dads and me or what?”

  “Sweetheart, it was part of my clown therapy,” she whimpered. “I had to do it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Clown therapy? What the fuck, pray tell, is that?”

  Mom told me all about it, trying to calm me down and defending herself at one and the same time.

  Clown therapy was Carolee’s latest attempt to put some meaning into her life. The astrology charts and psychic forecasts weren’t yielding any results. The ten thousand affirmations she taped to the fridge (“Today I will rejoice in my hunger between meals”) and bathroom mirror (“I honor the goddess within every time I look at my body without shame”) just weren’t doing the trick. Clown therapy was the newest of the endless alternative therapies she was forever trying out. None of them ever did any good that I could see. They perked her up for awhile, like a new boyfriend, and then she’d get tired of them and her spirits would droop and the whole cycle would begin again.
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  “It was my initiation,” she said. “The first time has to be the hardest. You have to choose the group you fear most.”

  “Let me get this straight. You choose the group you fear most and then make yourself into a fool in front of them? And that’s supposed to help you?”

  “It helps you to externalize your fear,” she said.

  “You looked like a fucking idiot!” I shouted. “And you made me, your daughter, look like an idiot. And the dads, what do you think they felt like?”

  “Whitman thanked me,” she shot back. “He said I was brilliant.”

  “He was being nice.”

  “Well, it all worked out in the end, didn’t it? I’m the one who got those Jesus freaks to back off so the dads could get inside.”

  I stomped outside so I could light up. “So what do you do,” I sneered, “go to a clown college or something?”

  “Not yet. First you do a course on video.” She waved a cassette at me from the other side of the door. It was the first in a series of ten videos that she was supposed to buy, along with “approved” clown merchandise, as she moved up the ladder toward clown mastery.

  “It’s a pyramid scheme!” I shrieked. I knew because I’d been suckered into quite a few of them myself, before bankruptcy. “Oh Mom, how could you be so stupid?”

  “I know that’s what it looks like,” she said, “but it’s not. Really, honey. This is something I’ve felt all my life. It’s about releasing the little girl within. It’s about turning grief into joy.”

  I didn’t want to hear about her grief so I kept my yap shut.

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” she said in a confiding tone, “because I don’t want you to worry, but my nutritionist says I am seriously depressed.”