by Nancy Thayer
She felt that the gap between men and women was so huge that she would never have the energy to imagine crossing it again. Often she had thought of herself and Steve as one. But now she knew that was only a foolish illusion.
“I’ve got to get back to work,” Steve said, breaking into her thoughts.
“All right,” Sara said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She sat at the table, head in her hands, while he put on his coat and cap and gloves. She did not raise her head for a good-bye kiss, and he did not come to kiss her but went wordlessly out the door, which he pulled shut firmly behind him.
“Oh, honey,” Ellie said. “Oh, sweetie.”
Even though it was the middle of the day, and prime-time rates were in effect, Sara had dialed her sister when she heard Steve pull away in their Jeep. Sara needed desperately to talk. She told Ellie about the procedure and then about how oddly she had reacted, first trying to persuade Steve that everything had been easy and fine, and then, to her consternation, lashing out at him for what wasn’t his fault.
“I think I’m going nuts,” Sara said. “I’m certainly acting nutty. But, Ellie, sometimes I feel that I’m ready to explode. I can’t seem to get control over anything. Everything in my life seems so stuck. I can’t get pregnant, and I can’t get this infuriating Fanny Anderson to even talk to me on the phone. I can’t get anything to work for me. My life is just stalled.”
“Now look,” Ellie said, “you’re getting everything confused. This book business has nothing to do with getting pregnant. They are both frustrating problems, but they are not related. You’re making yourself crazy connecting the two this way.”
“I know,” Sara said. “I know.”
“Listen,” Ellie said, “will you listen to me, please? I’m just a nurse, but I do know something about all this. Sara, we don’t have any idea how much fertility or infertility is affected by stress. And you’ve put yourself under heavy-duty stress. Especially by thinking of your work and your body as the same sort of general thing, you’re working yourself right into a kind of trap. You really have to relax.”
“Oh, Ellie,” Sara said, “I know that. I’ve read that. I’ve heard that. But how do I relax? All I can think about is getting pregnant.”
“Well, let’s consider the possibilities. First of all, you’re only thirty-four. You’ve got a good eight years to get pregnant. You’re healthy, Steve’s healthy; you two have just gotten a late start, and it takes a little longer to get pregnant when you’re older. I know you can’t forget about it now that you want it so much. But perhaps you can think of some ways not to focus on it so much. When you were in your twenties, there was so much you wanted to do, enjoyed doing. You liked to travel, you liked to swim and ski and horseback ride.… Why don’t you and Steve take a vacation? Not a vacation to get pregnant, but one to enjoy yourselves. Doing things you really love to do.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of money,” Sara began.
“My darling, you have more money now than you will after you have children, believe me,” Ellie said. “You will get pregnant, you know, and the day will come when you’ll wish you had the freedom you have now. When you’ll be stuck at home with a sick kid and you’ll wish you and Steve had done something slightly glamorous and exciting.”
“Well,” Sara agreed, “we could use a vacation. We could use some time together not thinking about a baby. And I could use some time not waiting for Fanny Anderson to call.”
“Well, then,” Ellie said. “Why not? Do something wonderful together, something you both would like. You might surprise yourself and get pregnant.”
“Oh, Ellie, what would I do without you?” Sara asked.
“I can’t imagine,” Ellie said. “You’d probably just have to be locked away somewhere.”
The sisters laughed. Ellie changed the subject, to tell Sara about a problem she was having with her supervisor. She forced herself to concentrate: I’ve got to stop dwelling on my problems, she told herself. I’ve got to relax.
When Steve came home that night, Sara had filled the house with the aroma of garlic and parsley as she made linguine with clam sauce, one of Steve’s favorite meals. She felt shy when her husband came in the door, and she could tell by the way he looked at her, holding himself tensely, slightly wary, that he was shy, too. For one long moment she was unsure of herself. Then, “Hi, sweetie,” she said, just at the moment that Steve said, “Hi, sweetie,” and they grinned, amused at themselves, and in a flash were in each other’s arms. All anger, all embarrassment disappeared, replaced by a wonderful mutual flow of comfort and content that rapidly brought on lust. They went to bed before they ate.
When they went back to bed later that night, they lay for a long time, holding each other and talking.
“Baby, baby, I didn’t mean to upset you, I didn’t mean to be insensitive,” Steve said. He held Sara nestled against him, and he softly massaged the back of her neck and head; it was a wonderfully soothing thing for him to do. Sara thought she would purr from it. “There’s just so much stuff I don’t know about it all,” he said. “And you seem so easy with it.”
Sara smiled into her husband’s chest. Now, in this dark room, warmed and comforted by her husband’s words and touch, the obsession faded, relaxed, so that she knew that what was real and good and important in her life was all here, all now, in this room, in this bed. Steve’s touch, and his words, which she could feel spoken, his warm breath rustling her hair, made her feel cherished.
Sara wrapped her arms around Steve and snuggled close to him, chest and pelvis pressed against his, her head bent and nuzzling against his shoulder. Oh, this was what it was all about, this was what the world was about, this was what men and women were all about. Not just a sexual love, though that, of course, but this love that included it all: parent and child, brother and sister, man and wife, excitement and content. He was everything to her, and she was everything to him. She had forgotten this, and it was deeply sweet to remember.
The next day they made reservations on a super-saver flight to Jamaica. They would leave in two weeks and spend ten days there. Steve could easily take the time off from his job, for January and February were slow months for carpenters. And Sara wasn’t editing another book yet. She decided to devote the two weeks to getting her body in shape for a bikini.
Five days before they left, while Sara was scrutinizing herself in the bedroom mirror, trying to decide if she really could walk around in front of strangers with so much flesh exposed, the phone rang.
“Hello, Sara? This is Fanny Anderson,” the soft lilting voice said.
Sara plopped down on the bed, amazed. She had not tried to reach the author for weeks. She had really given up hope.
“Oh, yes, how are you?” Sara asked.
“Oh, I’m well, thank you,” Fanny replied. “I’ve been writing, and I think I’m just about through with my Jenny book. But I can see where it would be of great help to have an editor at this stage. And your letters have been so kind, and you do seem to understand just what I’m attempting here. I was wondering if perhaps you would like to come for a visit, in the near future, as you had suggested.”
Sara’s heart jumped. She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Why, of course,” she said. “I’d be glad to come anytime. I’m delighted.”
“Well, then,” Fanny said, “when shall we schedule this?”
“Why, I could come tomorrow,” Sara said. “Or the next day or the day after that.”
There was a silence then, one so long and profound that Sara thought perhaps they had been disconnected.
“Hello?” Sara said. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” Fanny said, her voice faint. “Yes. All right. Do come tomorrow.”
Chapter Six
It had been months since she had worn this suit, a sleekly cut chocolate-brown tweed, expensive, elegant, even glamorous. She was wearing an ivory silk blouse with lace jabot and cuffs and her killer boots, dark supple leather with
heels so high she could never wear them on Nantucket’s cobblestone streets. But she was in Boston now, in a taxi on the way to Fanny Anderson’s house in Cambridge, her leather portfolio in her hand, and she felt better than she had in weeks. This was the moment she had been waiting for. Here the taxi was in front of the house. There were the wrought-iron gates, the sinuous slate walk, the forbidding oak door.
If the housekeeper didn’t let her in this time, she’d torch the place.
She had scarcely lifted the brass knocker when the door was opened by the vampire housekeeper.
“Mrs. Kendall?” the woman said. “Come in. May I take your coat? Mrs. Anderson is waiting for you.”
Sara caught only a glimpse of the vast formal foyer—a large statue of Venus on a pedestal, a high Chinese vase full of reeds and grasses, on ornate mahogany staircase winding to the second floor—before the housekeeper escorted her into another room. Without saying another word, the woman pulled the door shut behind Sara and vanished.
For a moment Sara thought she was alone in the room and was glad for this, because it would take a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the light. It was another dazzling winter day, cold and brilliant, but this room was as dark and hot as a tropical jungle. Rhomboids and diamonds of ruby and blue slanted from the stained-glass windows across the Oriental rugs that were layered over a thick carpet of deep turquoise pile. The other windows were covered with peacock blue velvet draperies that swagged and sloped heavily from the high windows to the floor, managing with their graceful weight to obscure more light than they let in. A wood fire flared and crackled from a vast blue-veined marble fireplace that ran across one wall of the room. Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of a nude woman, a breathtakingly beautiful nude woman. This painting was lighted by a small picture lamp just above it. The paneled walls were painted in a turquoise blue and were hung with oil paintings of beautiful women; the same beautiful woman, Sara realized. They had to be paintings of Fanny Anderson at different stages of her life, by different painters. Oh, Fanny Anderson had to be Jenny.
Sara took a step farther into the room. “Hello?” she said. The room was very large, and all the blues in the dim light made it seem dusky, shadowy, mysterious. The flickering light of the fire helped her to make out shapes of furniture, deep sofas, great soft chairs, the gleaming brass of fireplace equipment, tables covered with books and china figurines.
“Hello?” she said again, and this time was answered by a deep bestial sound, a woof.
Then she realized that the sofas and chairs were occupied by several large and amiable-looking spaniels. A fat, long-haired white cat observed Sara lazily from a deep, velvet-cushioned window seat. Two other cats dozed by the hearth. There were at least six animals in the room.
But where was Fanny Anderson?
Sara advanced cautiously. Her eyes were becoming adjusted to the dim and fluttering light, and she was not quite so disoriented. A dog, almost as large as a deer but white with three large black spots, opened her mouth in a wide yawn, then folded herself back down and dozed off in a blue wing chair.
The housekeeper had said, “Mrs. Anderson is waiting for you.” But where?
Then, at the far wall of the room, a door opened and a woman entered.
“Mrs. Kendall?” she said, and the lilt in her voice told Sara that at last she was to meet Fanny Anderson.
“Yes, I’m Sara Kendall. Hello,” Sara said, crossing the room, holding out her hand.
She’s decorated this room to show off her eyes was Sara’s first thought, for Fanny Anderson’s eyes were a luminous turquoise blue. Sara’s second thought was: My God, how beautiful she is.
Fanny Anderson was perhaps five foot eight, just a bit taller than Sara. She was wearing a deep blue mohair dress with a high neck, the long sleeves puffed gracefully at the top, the cut plain, simple, so that the soft material slid over her voluptuous body. Her heavy dark hair, streaked with white like whipped cream through chocolate, swooped low over one eye, then was swept back and coiled in an elaborate twist at the back of her head. She was wearing pearl earrings and a long string of pearls. Her perfume, something Sara did not recognize, gently drifted through the blue air.
She was somewhere in her fifties, Sara thought, for the telltale signs were there, the wrinkles around her eyes and along the jawline, the sag at the chin. No, she did not look young. But she was stunning all the same.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” Fanny Anderson said. “You look just like Princess Di.”
“Oh, my!” Sara said, laughing. “No one has ever told me that before! It must be my haircut.”
“No, but really,” Fanny said, her voice seductive, her head cocked slightly to one side as she studied Sara, “really there is a resemblance. The same golden hair, and your aristocratic carriage—and the enchanting surprise of a sweet smile. Really very much like Princess Di.”
“Well,” Sara said, flustered, not sure how to deal with such a barrage of compliments, “I believe I’m carrying a little more weight than Princess Di.”
“Ah, yes, she has gotten so scrawny, hasn’t she,” Fanny Anderson said. “It’s a pity. So unfeminine. You’re right not to let yourself get that way. You look so much more luscious.”
“Thank you,” Sara said, smiling, completely confused. She had never been complimented so extravagantly and outrageously before. Why was the woman doing this? In a flash, Sara realized that the woman wanted to be flattered just as excessively. No doubt she was used to it and thought that just in case her guest didn’t have the sense to begin their association in just such a pleasant way, she would take the lead.
“Coming from you, this is true praise indeed,” Sara said, sincerely, “since you are so remarkably beautiful. It must be wonderful to be so beautiful.” She paused, then, still going on intuition, said, “You know, I have to say this—now that I see you, I know you must be Jenny.”
To her surprise, a shadow of displeasure fell across the woman’s face. She turned aside. “Oh, no, my dear, oh, my, no,” Fanny Anderson said. “No, I’m not Jenny. How could you think that? Jenny is young, you know. I am old.”
“But eventually Jenny must have gotten old, too. I mean, what are her choices? One either must get old—or die!” Sara said, smiling, trying for a light note, glib in her confusion.
Fanny Anderson gave Sara a long look. “Perhaps in her case one is the other,” she said.
“What?” Sara asked, startled.
Fanny reached out to a table and adjusted the angle of a porcelain bowl, turning her back to Sara as she did so. “That’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?” she said, her voice so low that Sara could scarcely hear her. She drifted slowly back toward the door at the far end of the room, touching the back of a chair, straightening a picture. “The end of Jenny’s life,” she said, talking to herself more than to Sara. “I can’t seem to get it right.”
I’m losing her! Sara thought in a panic. She’s going to waft right out of this room!
“But that’s the wonderful thing about fiction,” Sara said. “You can rewrite it and rewrite it until it satisfies you. You have control.” When the woman did not turn back, Sara continued, “Unlike real life, which can be so obstinately uncooperative.”
She had said the right thing. Fanny looked back at Sara, studied her face in silence, moved just a few inches toward her.
“Someone as young and lovely as you can’t have found life to be ‘obstinately uncooperative’?” she said, her voice challenging.
“Oh, but I have,” Sara told her. She dropped her eyes. How much would she tell this woman? Her own personal despair washed over her briefly and she shook herself. She must be professional. “I have,” she repeated.
“Let’s have some tea,” Fanny said. Her voice was warm now, and she moved quickly across the room. “Please,” she said, indicating a sofa. “Sit down.”
Sara settled into one of the two fat curving deep sofas that faced each other in front of the fireplace. On a low table between
the two sofas were pens and pencils, clean lined paper, and a manuscript. So she was planning to work today, Sara thought. Still she was cautious, and felt as if she were on trial. There was a maze the writer wanted her to find her way through in order to gain admission to her confidence. Sara sat quietly, waiting, when she really wanted to grab the manuscript and see what the rest of the Jenny pages held.
Fanny rang a small silver bell and immediately the woman in brown opened the living room door.
“Yes, madam?” she asked, her face expressionless.
So she is the housekeeper, Sara thought. She is only the housekeeper, not a lover or a jailer.
“We’ll take our tea in here, Eloise,” Fanny said. “Thank you, dear.”
Sara hid a smile. Well, perhaps the woman was a housekeeper and a lover, or a friend. There were all kinds of strange relationships in the world.
Eloise returned at once with the tea cart, which held a sterling silver tea service and a silver platter full of delicate pastries full of cheese or chocolate or fruit. She wheeled the cart to the sofas in front of the fire, then quietly left, closing the door behind her. The room came alive then with interested animals who stretched and loped or slunk across the room to gather close to their mistress, staring with adoring and imploring eyes.
“You have such lovely animals,” Sara said.
“Oh, yes, I know,” Fanny agreed. “They are such a joy. Such a constant pleasure. And so nonjudgmental.” She leaned forward to stroke the fat white cat, who arched her back to receive the caress. Fanny looked up at Sara. “Isn’t she a beauty? And do you know, she is thirteen years old. It is amazing, isn’t it? Really, I have so often thought that life would be immeasurably happier for human beings if they only had fur.”
Sara stared at her hostess, smiling politely, thinking, Now what do I say to that? It was obvious from the temperature of the room that Fanny liked to be warm; fur would keep one warm.
“Then, you see,” Fanny went on, “our age wouldn’t show. Our wrinkles and sags would be hidden. Not until we were truly old would we have physical signs of aging. We would be beautiful until we were simply too decrepit to move or eat or see. We would not have to go through any part of the humiliating, crippling metamorphosis we have to go through. We would not have to waste our time fighting it off, holding it back. We could have years more of love and pleasure.”