Bad Connections

by Joyce Johnson

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “Well, I’m thinking that you’re thinking that Conrad isn’t your best friend enough. Otherwise he’d have more sleepovers at our house.”

  I hastily abandoned my introspection, got out a monster comic and read it to him until Conrad arrived, on time for a change. “Oh Conrad!” Matthew said, running up and giving him a little kiss. “What on earth are you doing here so early?”

  I remember it was a Friday night in October and I’d been living on Eighty-sixth Street a little over a month. Conrad was just back from a trip and seemed particularly cheerful, more relaxed than I’d seen him for a while. He insisted on taking over the reading of the comic, which he read with far more dramatic effect than I had ever attempted, and afterward he agreed to be Frankenstein for ten minutes and chased Matthew around the apartment while Matthew fended him off with the plant-mister.

  I sat in the living room as the chase went on, listening to Conrad’s heavy footsteps and Matthew’s light, running ones, his screams of delight. I felt an odd sadness, a suspicious teariness of the kind that comes over me sometimes when I watch reruns of The Wizard of Oz or Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street. It is the theme of reunion or reintegration that I identify with so strongly, the orphan coming home at last. I remember thinking, “Why can’t things be like this?”—which was absurd, because things were indeed “like this” at that particular moment. It was real life I was watching this time.

  There is no doubt in my mind that what I was experiencing just then was an attack of nostalgia for the nuclear family—that it was this outmoded configuration I wished to impose on my relationship with Conrad. Despite the lessons of my recent history, I was only waiting for the opportunity to make the attempt again. It was not so much an image of traditional marriage and family that I had but one of an idealized unity—a stubborn vision that I had never lost, that I pursued then and always will pursue.

  I remember we put Matthew to bed together, making him ready like a small pharaoh for his journey into the night, his ventriloquist dolls on either side of his pillow, the bear he’d had nearly all his life propped up against the wall, his Batman cape folded at the foot of his bed in case he should need it. After I had kissed him, he pulled Conrad’s head down to him with his strong little pajamaed arms, and not too long after that we went to bed ourselves.

  Something gave way in me that night—as if there’d been a small barrier inside me that I’d been almost unaware of until Conrad broke through, reaching now into the deepest places, exploring my most secret caverns with a freedom I had somehow never permitted him before. “That was fantastic,” he whispered afterward, as I lay weeping for joy beside him. “I love you,” I said. He didn’t answer, just lay there very quietly. It was so nearly dark in the room that I could hardly see his face. After a while he took my hand and squeezed it, crushing my fingers until I thought the bones would snap.

  He was asleep before I even realized it. I lay still feeling him inside me, as if my body, my sex, had its own kind of memory. I only wanted him again. I put my hand on him at last, almost guiltily, because I knew he was a man who needed his sleep, holding and caressing the part of him I loved so much until it swelled and grew firm and he turned to me and put it in me.

  Perhaps I was too conscious of what I wanted to repeat. It wasn’t quite as good the second time. Nonetheless, I woke up as soon as it became light the next morning with the conviction that everything was about to change.

  I REMEMBER LYING there next to Conrad for what might have been an hour, thinking of the words he’d said to me the night before and how he’d clasped my hand. His arm was resting heavily upon my ribs, but I was careful not to shift under the weight of it. Turning my head slightly, I stared at his face—the thick eyelashes, the slightly open mouth, the small white scar upon his chin, the sweat glistening upon his forehead. There was a luxurious freedom in being conscious while he slept.

  I wished he would sleep on and on. At least I’d know that he was there. When he woke up, his thoughts would be of leaving. I wondered if this time, though, he might stay—if now he could begin to break with Roberta. I could feel a dangerous impatience rising up in me. I wanted this weekend with him.

  The bedroom door opened suddenly and there was a blare of Saturday morning cartoons from the living room. Matthew came to my bedside bearing his cats, whom he’d thoughtfully brought along for my amusement.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered fiercely, hastily pulling the covers around me.

  “Mom, I want some cereal.”

  “Well, go and get it.”

  “I want you to do it.”

  “Matthew, you’re perfectly capable of putting some cereal in a bowl and pouring milk on it. Go on now.”

  Conrad stirred and muttered something unintelligible. The arm he had flung across me jerked away.

  “Matthew!” I hissed.

  He stood there looking at me reproachfully, his pink lower lip protruding. He released the cats who skittered across the room and stretched himself out next to me on the edge of the bed.

  “Please, Matthew.”

  He lay there determined to be unmoveable, beating his heels against the mattress. On the floor at the foot of the bed, the cats had discovered Conrad’s shoes and were playing with the laces.

  “You’re being very naughty,” I said sternly.

  “No I’m not,” he said with all the confidence of someone who had mastered the art of passive resistance at the age of five. But even if I had been able to send him away, it was too late. Conrad stretched and rolled from side to side. His eyelids fluttered open. “Hi, Conrad,” Matthew said.

  Shaking his head groggily, Conrad sat up. “What time is it?” he said.

  “The big hand is on the three and the little hand is on the eight,” Matthew announced proudly.

  “Eight fifteen.” With a groan, Conrad sank down again. “I should go soon,” he said.

  I felt a slight constriction in my throat. “Why should you go so early? It’s Saturday.”

  “I have so much to catch up with. I might as well take advantage of getting an early start.”

  Reaching under the covers, I put my hand upon his side, moving it gently up and down, slowly increasing the pressure of my fingers. His eyes half-closed. “Mm, that feels good,” he said.

  I could feel my heart beating as if I were about to do something risky. “Why don’t you go back to sleep and I’ll go out to Broadway in a while and get some bagels?”

  “You know me. I never eat breakfast.”

  “Wanna wrestle, Conrad?” Matthew asked hopefully.

  “Matthew, I want you to get off the bed this instant!”

  One of the cats jumped up and walked across Conrad’s chest. “I might as well get up now,” he said. Under the circumstances I could hardly blame him.

  I gave Matthew an angry push. “Now just get up and get the cats out of here and go in and eat some cereal.”

  “You’re real mean today, Mom,” he said, sliding to the floor.

  I assured him I was going to get meaner if he didn’t obey, and wondered miserably what impression this demonstration of shrewish behavior was making on Conrad. It was clear, however, that it had very little effect upon my son. Far from leaving the room, he wandered over to the window and began playing with the window shade, jerking it experimentally to see how far it would roll up.

  “He’s impossible this morning,” I said to Conrad.

  Conrad laughed. “I think he’s being normal. At least he’s not developing an authoritarian personality. It’s just the early morning television that gets to me.”

  “I hear every word you’re saying, you big smarty,” Matthew said.

  “So what’s the program on now?”

  “The Flintstones, of course.”

  “If I ever lived here, Matthew, you and I would have to
work out some sort of an agreement about certain things.”

  “Well, you don’t live here,” Matthew said. “You just come over.” He gave the shade such a hard yank that it rolled all the way up to the top of the window. Light glared into the room through the dirty naked glass.

  “Oh shit!” I cried, sitting up. Matthew gave me a terrified glance and fled, slamming the door behind him. I got out of bed now to pull the shade down, dragging a chair over to the window so that I could stand on it to reach the cord. When I turned, Conrad was up too, already wearing his underpants, bending over the pile of clothes on the floor intent on separating his from mine.

  I had the feeling he was on the run, as if he sensed he had inadvertently put himself into a weak position by referring casually to a subject he was careful never to discuss directly.

  “I think I’ve lost a sock,” he said. “Things seem to disappear in this house.”

  “No more than in any other.”

  I was angry with him for casting aspersions on my housekeeping, angry with him for being in such haste to leave. I found the sock under the radiator where the cats had dragged it, brushed the lint off it and held it out to him triumphantly. “Voilà,” I said with bitterness.

  “Thank you very much.” He took it from me and sat down on the bed to put it on.

  Although I knew it was the wrong moment to ask Conrad what I was going to ask, I also knew it was the only opportunity I was going to get. “Conrad, how about coming back here later?” It came out of me in a stiff and brittle tone that sounded more like an invitation to an argument than to a night of unbridled pleasure.

  He stared at me, then asked me what I meant.

  “I mean after you’ve done your work. I mean this evening.

  He was silent. “You know I can’t do that, Molly,” he said with a weary patience.

  “You could if you wanted to.”

  “I couldn’t do that to Roberta.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about Roberta,” I said recklessly.

  “I do.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “She’s a human being, Molly, a very nice person. I treat her with the same respect I show to you.”

  “I’d say you treat her with more. Saturday nights are positively sacred to her.”

  “As it is,” Conrad said, “she’s upset that I can’t be with her on Fridays.”

  “I would like to have two consecutive days with you, Conrad, just once. I would like to be with you on a weekend sometime.”

  “I understand your feelings.” Conrad picked up his shirt and put his arms in the sleeves.

  “What weekend could we spend together? Why don’t you get out your little calendar?”

  “How about Thursday and Friday two weeks from now. I’ll be coming back from Chicago.”

  It took me only a second to assess the full meaning of what he’d said.

  “She doesn’t know a thing yet, does she?” I cried out wildly. “You’ve never told her anything? Where does she think you are the nights you spend with me?”

  “I’ve given hints.”

  “Hints! You’re bending over backwards to protect her from knowing anything. Why do you protect her and not me?”

  I asked the last question with a certain dread. I needn’t have feared, however. Conrad was ready.

  “Because she’s a very fragile woman and you’re a very self-sufficient one.”

  He finished buttoning his shirt and stood up to tuck it into his jeans. I watched him pull his zipper up and buckle his belt. He walked over to me and gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll see you on Tuesday night,” he said, “at seven. Unless you’d rather not.”

  “I would like to see you before then. I would like to see you tomorrow. You just arrange to get over here, Conrad!” I shouted as he walked to the bedroom door. He opened it, then turned for a moment.

  “Your anger hurts me very much, Molly,” he said sadly. “It seems to come from nowhere—especially after a beautiful night like the one we’ve just had.”

  IT WAS AFTER this that I began to be obsessed by the question of Roberta’s lack of knowledge. It was this that came to assume an even larger place in my mind than Conrad’s eventual separation from her. As Conrad would have been the first to say, no rational event occurs without a context.

  Did Roberta know anything at all? Did she know nothing? Did she know—and choose not to know?

  I had only what Conrad told me to guide me and my own intuition, which generally contradicted the impression he was trying to create. Roberta became fixed in my imagination in her unknowingness—which, like a magic garment, was both the potential source of her vulnerability and the secret of her curious power.

  Conrad seemed frozen into his role as guardian of this enchanted state, unable to make even the first move that would unravel the situation. I wondered sometimes if he was someone who needed to be loved by as many people as possible, if he couldn’t bear to let anyone go. I think he really did mean initially to let Roberta know by degrees that his affections had strayed to me; then when she seemed somewhat used to the idea, the break would occur. He was a man who would often be carelessly though never deliberately unkind. It could have been argued of course that the sooner Roberta knew, the kinder it would be in the end, the sooner her recovery would start.

  I often asked myself what I would prefer in her position. I thought I would much rather know immediately, painful as it would be. I would suffer intensely for a time and then get on with my life. Although when I reflected upon the curious staying power I’d demonstrated during my marriage, I wasn’t so sure of my own ability to cut loose from a hopeless situation. And I was even less sure when I asked myself how long I was going to give Conrad to work things out.

  I longed for an accident that would reveal everything to Roberta—something quite out of Conrad’s responsibility or control. As my obsession grew, I brooded upon possible ways in which knowledge could be communicated to her—scenarios like an encounter between the three of us in a crowded delicatessen, a chance meeting with her on Broadway as Conrad and I walked with our arms linked in a manner immediately suggesting intimacy. I rather dreaded the idea of such a confrontation, imagining her distress. And there was always the possibility that Conrad would rise to the occasion and introduce me as a client. And then there’d be the question of what I’d do.

  I wanted to believe that I would boldly seize the opportunity to expose the truth—even at the risk of alienating Conrad temporarily. And yet I could also imagine myself standing there in silence, immobilized, as Roberta’s eyes searched our guilty faces, her voice shook as she said she was glad to meet me. It was as if we had exchanged places in the fantasies I used to have when I was married—wherein I tracked Fred down to the dark booth in Max’s Kansas City where he was ensconced with his current twenty-two-year-old. I remember being quite aware that those long-limbed nymphs of Fred’s owed me nothing. How could I expect them to defer to a marriage so obviously little valued? Nonetheless, I’d seen myself as a figure of wrath and grief, with justice on my side.

  I had known about Fred of course. Without knowing the particulars, I had known and chosen to stay, however mistakenly. Despite Conrad’s concern for her emotional well-being, Roberta, deprived of knowledge, was deprived of choice as well—and was thus in an intolerable position if she only knew it. As for me, I was in the consciously intolerable position of knowing all sides—or so I thought.

  There is a corner bus stop on Seventy-second Street just after the Fifth Avenue bus makes the turn off Riverside Drive. She is sitting near the front of the bus with her child that Sunday. It is not quite noon and there are a number of empty seats behind them. She has been looking out of the window with only mild interest because the route is so familiar to her. A man and woman wait at the bus stop. The bus comes to a halt, the doors open to let them on. The woman is in her early twenties,
tall and slender with short curly brown hair. She is dressed in perfectly fitting jeans with an expensive green suede jacket. She is laughing in a very animated way at something her escort has just said, tossing her curly head back, tilting her face upward toward his. She waits for him as he searches his pockets for change. The man with her is Conrad, in a new navy blue turtleneck sweater that goes very well with his eyes. There is no doubt about it, they are a handsome couple.

  “Look Mom, there’s Conrad,” Matthew says. “Hey Conrad! We’re going to the zoo.”

  Conrad turns. His face stiffens slightly. Then he waves to Matthew with a big smile. By now he has found his change and he pays the fare. As he and the young woman pass the seat where she and Matthew are sitting, he pauses for a moment and says “Hello, Molly,” in a voice that seems louder than necessary.

  She is quite unable to answer. Turning away, she barely manages to nod. She can feel her left cheek, the one that is closest to the aisle, burning. No force on earth will make her look at him, will make her glance behind her as he and the young woman move on toward the rear and seat themselves about four rows back on the other side of the aisle.

  Matthew is kneeling on his seat, intent on getting a better view of his old friend.

  She tugs at the back of his belt. “Sit down, Matthew!”

  “Mom, can I go and sit with Conrad?”

  “No!”

  She is trying to superimpose her image of Roberta upon the person she has just seen, although she knows it will not fit. It is not Roberta Conrad is with, but someone whose existence she has not even suspected. Perhaps Roberta herself does not exist in Conrad’s life to the extent that she has been led to believe. She wonders how many different women there are. How many, Conrad? Is this the woman he sees on Sundays?

  She is feeling dizzy. It is the close air, the slow, lurching movements of the bus. More people get on at Broadway, filling the empty seats, standing in the aisle next to her, above her. A stranger’s belly presses against her shoulder. Finally she makes herself look behind her just once to where Conrad is absorbed in conversation with the other woman just as if she, Molly, is no more than any other passenger. His eyes wander in her direction for an instant, but it is not as though he sees her.