The Best of Everything

by Rona Jaffe

  Neither of them quite knew what was happening to them and to their marriage, or how to prevent it. Mac believed in live and let Hve, and although it must have occmred to him many times to try to find out why Barbara was melancholy, he never asked. On weekends he took her to beer parties at the rooms of his college friends, and sometimes during the week he would take her to the campus beer house where the students raced up and down the aisles greeting their friends and crowded six at a time into narrow booths meant for four. The smell of the spilled beer and the half-put-out cigarettes

  made her feel ill. The girls who were out on dates with Mac's friends all looked so slim and carefree they made her feel twice as self-conscious as before. If she could have had one good thing: a ride in the country on a fresh day, a cleaning woman to clean up their tiny room once and for all, a new dress that was becoming, a close girl friend to confide in, everything would have been all right. Neither her mother nor Mac's father had enough money to send anything more than rent, and even that was not easy for them. Barbara had been putting off writing her mother about the baby.

  After a while when Barbara said she didn't feel like going to the beer house Mac started going there alone. It was seldom enough that he had a chance to get out, what with studying and then the part-time job he had found as a busboy in tlie college cafeteria during the summer school. The job was to save money for the hospital bills and the expenses that would come afterward. They needed a larger apartment. As for Barbara, she didn't feel any more as if she were carrying a baby, she felt as if it were a tremendous growth, a tumor, and she wanted nothing so much as to go to the hospital at the end of the nine months and have it leave her body. Even love-making was no longer fun, or even an escape. You had to care about your own body to want to give it to someone you loved, and when you felt that you were an ugly stranger how could the giving of such a body be anvthing but embarrassing?

  Then Barbara went to the hospital to have the baby, and overnight everything changed. One night she was in pain, screaming and wishing she were home with her mother again, and in the morning she felt for the first time that she was an adult. The first thing she saw when she awoke was her own flat stomach, her sense of identity restored. She was Barbara, of course, how could she have forgotten? The next thing she saw was her baby's round fuzzy head and its tiny body, so delicate to the touch, a sack of soft white clothing with littie limbs wrapped inside.

  She hadn't had the faintest idea how much she would love her baby until she touched her with her own hands. This was worth it, this was worth everything. How could she have been so childish, so ignorant, not to have realized how much love she had stored up in her own heart? Love came pouring out like an aura in the room, bringing tears to her eyes. She loved the baby, she loved Mac; how much she loved him! She had been ignoring him all these months,

  poor angel, and he hadn't complained or argued with her, ever. She would make it all up to him, she would make him happy. They would have a real home.

  She came back from the hospital into a two-room apartment Mac had found, Barbara worked as hard as she had ever worked in her life, thoughts of further education forgotten. She cleaned the house and made the baby's formula and took all Mac's clothes to the cleaner's. She polished her nails and went on a diet and read the women's magazines to find new recipes that didn't cost much that Mac might like. At Christmas they went home for the first time, bringing Hillary. They stayed with Mac's father, and Barbara and Mac and the baby slept in Mac's old room among the framed pictures of his high-school graduating class, his track medals and his old forgotten albums of stamps. Perhaps it was the strangeness of the thiee of them brought together in this room that was so filled with memories of the past, or perhaps Barbara had changed her attitude too late; or perhaps it was simply that their life and their responsibilities were too much for tliem to understand, and love was too fragile to make up the difference. . . .

  "Look, Barb," Mac said, running his tongue along his lower lip, snapping the blade of his jackknife in and out of its holder. He had found the old knife in his night-table drawer the day before. "Look, Barb, I don't know how to say it."

  "Say what, angel?"

  "Don't call me angel! It makes me feel worse."

  "Why?"

  He stood up and began to pace the room, angrily, putting his feet down with every step as if he were trying to destroy something painful that had been written on sand. "I'm not going back to Ohio."

  "Well, all right, darling. I don't care. We can leave Hillary with my mother and go back there to get all our clothes and the wedding presents. Most of the rest is junk, so we can sell it to somebody."

  "I don't mean that."

  "Well, what, then?"

  He was flicking the knife blade against his thumb and it frightened her. She was afraid he might cut himself. His mouth twitched a little and he took a deep breath. "I mean I'm not . . ." He hesitated and then plunged on, enunciating very clearly. "I don't want

  to go back to Ohio and I don't want to stay here with you either. I don't think you and I should see each other for a while."

  "What? But we're married!"

  "I don't want to be married." Suddenly he was shouting, his face contorted with fear and guilt. "I don't want to be marriedl We should never have gotten married in the first place! I'm sorry, I'm sorry . . ."

  They both stared at each other in silence, realizing at last that the words had been said, and that they had been true for a long long time before they had ever been spoken.

  "I'm sorry," he said again, softly.

  "Please don't leave me," Barbara said.

  "I'm doing you a favor."

  She hadn't meant to cry, but she was crying hysterically, the tears rolling down her face, her hands stiffly at her sides, not uplifted to hide her emotion. "Don't leave me," she wept. "Don't leave me! I love you." And all the time she was sobbing and crying out to him, at the back of her mind she knew she would be relieved when he was gone.

  "Oh, baby," He put his arms around her, he patted her hair.

  "I love you," she said again.

  "Oh, God."

  "It's just that we both hate Ohio and that apartment," she said, the words coming out calmer now. "We'll come back to New York, you can find a good job, we'll have money. You can finish your credits at N.Y.U."

  "Don't you understand?" he said.

  "No, I don't. We're married. We have a child. Even if you don't love me any more . . ."

  He was standing with his back to her now, counting out money and putting it on the table. His voice when he spoke was emotionless. "I do love you. Barb. I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist. Maybe I should never have married anyone in the first place. Maybe you shouldn't have. Or maybe we should never have married each other."

  He walked past her quickly, avoiding her hand that she stretched out to touch him. "I'll send you money," he said, and was gone.

  The next day Barbara and Hillary moved downtown to her mother's house. She didn't know where to reach Mac, and the wait-

  ing was a nightmare for two weeks or so. Then it broke, like a fever. She felt strangely relieved and began to wonder what would happen to her now.

  The next time she saw him was with the lawyer when they got the divorce, and Mac could hardly look at her. Once he looked up, as if he were seeing her for the first time, and said, "You look beautiful. I never saw that dress."

  "Thank you," she said poHtely, as if he were a stranger.

  "Beautiful," he said.

  Those were the last words they spoke to each other as husband and wife. She was remembering them now, as she often did, as she walked down the last street toward the apartment she shared with her mother and the baby. Yes, she was thinking, I should change the baby's name. Perhaps Barbara would be nice, or I could even name her after my own mother. Who am I kidding? she thought, and unexpectedly her throat closed with pain. I'll never change the baby's name, or anything about her. She's the only thing I have left of
him. It's too late. . . . All the time I was thinking of myself and feeling confused and weighted dowm, it never occurred to me that Mac might be feeling the same way. Neither of us understood ourselves or the other person. How could we ever have gotten married? It's like holding hands and jumping ofiF the top of a building; did we think it was going to be any easier because we were holding hands? And now it's too late. . . .

  Neither of them had remarried yet, but neither wanted to see the other again. They met once a month when Mac came to see Hillary. They would talk about the baby until they could think of nothing else to say about her, and then they would make small talk, and then he would leave. Whenever he had just left Barbara would miss him, and yet she knew it was not Mac himself that she felt the loss of. It was something else, something intangible. A diflferent life, a happiness they had had only for such a short time, a second chance neither of them wanted to take, a childhood that had turned abruptiy into womanhood without the time in between, a time-in-between that had been restored to her now that she was too changed and serious.

  As she walked up the stairs to her apartment Barbara began to feel trapped. She called her apartment "The House of Women" because it so conspicuously lacked a man's touch anywhere. Her

  mother, a widow. Herself, divorced. Hillary, well, it would be a little girl, just to round out the sewing circle. And as for tlie neighbors, well . . . there were the two middle-aged men who lived together in a one-and-a-half down tlie hall and looked more like nice old ladies than men. In fact, one of her dates had said once that they probably live in the one-and-a-half because it made it easier for them to chase each other. And tliere was the strange, studious young man who lived next door with his crippled mother. Once Barbara had been alone with him in the elevator and he had stared at her with such animosity that it frightened her. And then there was April Morrison. At least April was normal, and what a relief it was to hear her reassuring Colorado twang and her amusing little faux pas that threw her into confusion when she realized what she had said or done. And as for herself, she was on her way to another evening in front of the television set waiting for it to be late enough to go to bed. And she had thought marriage was boring!

  The blare of the television set greeted her through the thin front door of her apartment. Barbara let herself in with her key and put her packages on the dinette table. Her mother was sitting in front of the television set in an armchair, dressed in a long quilted bathrobe. She watched television all day long, often not leaving the house at all, and seldom botliered to dress.

  "Hi, Mom."

  "Look at this, this is a good movie," her mother said by way of greeting. "Lifeboat. We missed it when it was playing around the neighborhood."

  "I brought honey buns," Barbara said.

  "That's my sweet girl."

  "We can have them for dessert. What's for dinner?"

  "Oh," her motlier said, "I didn't go to the store today. I didn't feel so well."

  "What's the matter?"

  "I don't know. I had pains in my stomach. It was nothing."

  "Did you call the doctor?"

  "It wasn't anything."

  "What did you do all day?" Barbara asked, already knowing the answer.

  Her mother shrugged. "What do I always do?"

  "You sat in that chair and watched television. When I left for the

  oflSce this morning you were glued to the 'Breakfast Club.' Then you saw all your soap operas and the afternoon quiz show and the 'Twilight Movie.' You probably even watched 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' and 'Lucky Pup' and any other kiddie shows they're offering today. And you complain you have pains in your stomach. Do you want to know why you have pains in your stomach?"

  "Why?"

  "Sitting down all day, that's why. Why didn't you go out for a walk or something?"

  "Walk? Where should I walk?"

  "Call up one of your friends."

  "Mrs. Oliphant was here today for a while. She watched TV with me. Then she took tlie baby out for a walk. She's crazy about Hillary."

  "I'll go see her." Barbara went into the bedroom that used to be hers before she was married and which she now shared with her child, a crib, another dresser, a bathinette and an assortment of stuffed animals, blocks and dolls. Hillary was in her crib, wearing her blue sleeper. She stood up at the sight of her mother and tried to climb over the bars. Barbara lifted her out and Idssed her.

  "Hello, sweetie. How's my baby? How's my angel?"

  She leaned down to hold Hillary's hand, and they walked together into the Hving room. Her mother was avidly watching a commercial. Barbara continued into the kitchen and swung the baby up onto the drainboard, talking to her.

  "Now you watch me while I fix dinner, all right? And I'll tell you what I did today. We were working on the bride's issue today, for June, you remember? Oh, it was funny, they had to take pictures of the models on the roof in filmy white nightgowns and peignoirs— against the skyline, very romantic—and the photographer had to use a filter so you wouldn't see the gooseflesh."

  The baby sat solemnly on the edge of the drainboard, her fat legs sticking straight out, chewing on a piece of bread and luUed by her mother's pleasant voice.

  "Well, I guess we'll have to have canned ravioli again tonight. There's nothing else since Nana didn't go to the store. You like ravioli, don't you, angel? You know, I think I'm going to get another raise in June. I put in for one. My boss said I'm the only girl in the oflBce who has the nerve to ask for her summer raise a month after

  she got her New Year's one, but she was smihng when she said it so I know she thinks the one I got last month was too small. It was a joke, you know that. Five dollars a monthl Did you ever figure out what that is a week?"

  The baby, comforted by the security of the voice she knew so well and the words she did not understand, curled up on the drainboard and fell asleep, her thumb in her mouth. Her piece of bread, damp and chewed, fell to the floor. Barbara looked at her and shrugged, smiling lovingly. She picked up the child in her arms and carried her to the crib. In the living room her mother, wreathed in cigarette smoke, was still watching television.

  Barbara went back to the kitchen and began to open cans, listening to the muted sounds of voices from the other room, voices that couldn't answer, speaking to a woman who had for some reason given up caring whether she had anyone to speak to or not. Barbara heard the sound of the kitchen clock ticking, the click of a spoon on the edge of a pot. She heard a voice inside her head speaking and knew it was her own voice speaking to herself. "Talk to me," it said. "Talk to me?"

  "I'd love to," she said aloud.

  "Nobody in this house ever talks to me," the voice said.

  "I know," Barbara answered. "Me neither."

  "I bet mother had a fine talk with Mrs. Oliphant this afternoon," the voice said. "Mrs. Oliphant probably said. It's a shame Barbara hasn't remarried. Such a nice girl. Oh, Mother answered, it's not for lack of being asked. She just isn't interested right now. She'll choose when she's in the mood for it. Oh, I'm sure, Mrs. Oliphant said. I'm sure."

  "Dozens of suitors," Barbara said. "All of them proposing. In a pig's eye, they are."

  "And then Mrs. Oliphant went away and met one of her friends," the voice went on. "And the friend said, How's Barbara? And Mrs. Oliphant said, I don't think she's so happy. I'll bet she's sorry now that she tossed away that nice Mac Lemont. I'U bet she'd like to have him back."

  "I can just hear her," Barbara said.

  "And would you?" asked the voice. "Would you like to have him back?"

  "Stop bothering me," Barbara said.

  "Would you?"

  "No. I just want . . . someone to talk to. Someone to talk to me. Someone to care about. And I'll find him, so you butt out and you shut up. I'll find him, you'll see. It'll be sooner than you think."

  "To borrow your own gentle phrasing," the voice said, "in a pig's eye you will!"

  Chapter 7

  In June there was an early heat spell, with waves of h
ot air rising from the sticky pavements and restaurant patrons complaining loudly: Hey, when're you going to get that air conditioning on? In the mechanically cooled, wide-windowed cubicles of Fabian PubH-cations life went on as usual. Mike Rice and Caroline had fallen into the habit of meeting at five o'clock by the water cooler, nodding at each other, separating and meeting later in a small bar on Third Avenue. It was hard to keep anything private at the oflBce. Everyone in the place knew that Miss Farrow was having an affair with one of the vice-presidents, everyone except Mary Agnes, who knew it but refused to beheve it. Even though Mary Agnes managed to be first with the most in the gossip department, she could never bring herself to believe that people were actually "doing it." She would grin, look shocked and whisper, but at the back of her mind was always a reservation, probably because the sexual actions of the others were so removed from anything she herself would ever contemplate. Brenda had gotten married, and a week before the wedding there had been an oflBce party, with all the girls chipping in a dollar apiece for the gift and getting slightly tipsy on one whisky sour downstairs in the bar. After the honeymoon Brenda had brought a huge white leather photograph album to the office, titled "Our Wedding," and had insisted that every girl in the bullpen look at it and give appropriate compliments. I was right, Caroline couldn't help thinking, he is a moose face.

  Through Mr. Shalimar's intervention Caroline had received a ten-dollar-a-week raise and the title of "Reader," and she had moved in