Second Acts

by Teri Emory

  __________

  The phone startles me. As I reach to answer it, I hear the front door close, then a car door slam. Carmen’s leaving. The cleaning crew must be finished.

  “You sound sleepy. Too early to call, Mom?”

  “That’s fine, sweetheart. I should get up anyway.”

  “How was the party? Sorry I didn’t make it this year. Please tell me I didn’t miss anything exciting. You know, like some scandal.”

  “Afraid not. This was a very boring, well-behaved group.”

  “How did your dress look?”

  “Not as good as it would look on you. You still want it for that party?”

  “Are you sure I can take it? I’ll have to get it altered.”

  “It’s all yours. I’ll mail it to you. Find a dressmaker who can turn it into a size six.”

  “Thanks, Mom. How did Aunt Miriam look? Great like always, I bet.”

  “She looked like a 1930’s movie star. I haven’t spoken to her yet today, but—here’s some gossip for you—I think there were sparks between her and Dad’s friend, Gabe Bryant.”

  “He’s a really cool guy. They never met before?”

  “I know, it seems strange. They’ve both been to the house so often, but never at the same time.”

  “Now that I think about him, he’s perfect for her. They can spend the rest of their lives watching movies together.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell them you said so.”

  “I got an email from Ellie Roth this morning. Did you know about the money from her father?”

  “I did hear something. Sarah has spoken to Dad about getting investment advice. I haven’t had a chance to speak to Sarah. What did Ellie say?”

  “She was funny as always. She’s coming up to Boston for the Dave Matthews Band concert. She was planning to fly instead of taking the train, she said, since she’s now an heiress.”

  “She said that? How much . . .?”

  “Mom! Don’t let’s get tacky. I’m not about to ask her how much money her father left her. I was brought up better than that.”

  I smile. “You must have wonderful parents. Are we going to see you any time soon, Nicole?”

  “Probably not. Crazy busy until Thanksgiving. And the answers to your next two questions are: I still haven’t declared an official major, and no one special at the moment but I’ll keep you posted.”

  __________

  Sunday night, just out of the shower. I catch a blurred vision of myself in the steamy full-length mirror. The image of my moderately Rubenesque body seldom fails to disappoint me. With my fingertips I trace the two hairline scars on my right breast, reminders of lumpectomies that, thankfully, revealed nothing malignant inside me. As to the faded stretch marks on my hips, I’m not certain if I acquired them during pregnancy or as a result of a lifetime of failed attempts at losing weight. Right now, I’m in one of my thinner periods, though no one would likely describe me as thin. No amount of dieting, Jazzercize, jogging, speed walking, or time on the treadmill has enabled me to shed for good the last, stubborn twenty pounds I’ve toted since adolescence.

  “You’re so nice and tall, dear,” my mother used to say. “You can carry it.”

  Indeed, I can and I have.

  I reach for a tiny, swan-shaped crystal jar on my vanity. From a thin silk ribbon around the swan’s neck dangles a booklet describing in a hilariously mangled translation the history of the product in the jar. “Crème Kyoto derives from a cryptic recipe that bestowed the transcendental aura of eternal youth upon a dynasty of Japanese empresses in centuries past.” I’ve been using the stuff since Jim brought it to me from Tokyo two months ago; so far, no transcendental aura. Nonetheless, I gently pat small dots of the emulsion from my neck to my forehead. The wrinkles around my eyes—not “laugh lines” certainly; no laughter could have etched such deep furrows in my face—are no worse than I’ve seen on twenty-somethings who’ve overdone their tanning salon sessions. I’ve brightened my hair with blonde streaks that camouflage the gray and give an overall effect of sun-bleached rather than faded. Jim often says, “Not bad for an old broad.” To which I reply, “What do you know? You can’t see two inches in front of your nose without bifocals.” The comedy patter of long-time marrieds.

  Here I am, a middle-aged therapist, with a self-image still ruled by shallow self-criticism. I’d love to face getting older with defiance and dignity, but the truth is I yearn to be thinner, prettier, and (lately) younger. How pathetic: I’ve weathered the tempests of a thirty-year marriage, raised two children and buried one; I’ve earned a doctoral degree and the respect of my patients and colleagues; I’m well traveled and well read, bilingual and cultured—and yet there’s only one compliment guaranteed to lift my spirits: Why, you don’t look your age!

  __________

  Monday morning, before dawn. Predictably, I dreamt about Rome, which usually makes me happy, but I awoke feeling anxious. In the dream I was running up the Spanish Steps, nervous because I was late for . . . for what? I never found out; I was yanked into consciousness by a racket behind the house. Raccoons in the garbage pails again.

  My eyes open, my head starts to clear, and I think, a few hours from now, Andrew will be waiting for me at his hotel. Then I think, Jim! Have I already cheated on my husband by not telling him about my conversation with my former lover? Is it a betrayal if I see Andrew and just don’t tell Jim? Even if I don’t sleep with Andrew? On the phone, Andrew sounded to be in search of therapy, not sex. Or is that what I chose to hear? I haven’t slept with anyone else since the day I met Jim. I’ve had exquisite fantasies and minor flirtations, but never for a moment have I seriously considered getting intimate with another man.

  And though, in a way, Andrew has never left my heart or mind, the truth is that I have no explicit memory of the sexual act with him. I remember that our lovemaking was always accompanied by music and wine and food. I recall that we made love on the overnight train to Milan, and in tourist-class hotels in a dozen Italian cities, and in every room in Dr. Fabrizzi’s palazzo—but how? What did it feel like when he kissed me? How did he like to be touched? Were there words we spoke in whispers to signal arousal? On the outskirts of my memory, only a tangle of sensations endures. The smell of the air on warm Roman nights. The sight of Andrew’s seductive smile. The sound of the Italian singer Mina’s voice crooning Che senso ha? (What sense does it make?), the disconsolate song we played endlessly on a tinny record player we picked up at the flea market. The taste of our favorite after-sex meal, pizza quattro stagione from the Trattoría da Paolo. But I’ve long forgotten what was singular about the actual execution of our lovemaking—how he moved his hands, where our mouths and fingers would go, our propensities, our rhythms.

  In these intervening years, between the last time Andrew touched me and right this minute, every sexual circumstance of my life has belonged to Jim. I can’t pretend that my sex life with Jim has been unsatisfying in any way. And if there can be no surprises in bed between lovers of thirty years, nonetheless I have no complaints. Jim has always been tender and capable, an unselfish and playful lover. He seems to be in the mood for sex about as often as I am, which is still quite frequently. He can make me laugh one minute and usher me to orgasm the next. He’s habitually talkative in bed, spinning erotic tales in my ear. During my pregnancies, he was rapturous about my body, caressing my swollen belly and breasts like fragile, sacred objects, swearing he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

  I know that the decision about whether to see Andrew has little to do with Jim. It has to do with me alone, because the thought of seeing Andrew again is irresistible. And maybe I’m feeling entitled to an adventurous, unpredictable moment or two even if (or perhaps, because) I am fifty-three, and menopausal, and still grieving for Adam, and beyond believing that life is ever fair or felicitous for very long. It’s simply this: Being with Andrew might bring me
a little happiness for a little while. I’ll see him. I won’t sleep with him. I’ll figure out later how to explain things to Jim.

  __________

  I open the double doors to my walk-in closet, which is roughly the size of the bedroom Jim and I slept in when we lived in Manhattan. What to wear, I wonder, for a rendezvous, even an innocent one, with the first man I ever loved? Absurdly, I attach what I think is important, symbolic meaning to every article of clothing I select: Black silk pants suit (because it’s from an Italian designer); a silk blouse in deep yellow (Andrew once said my hair was the color of honey); gold Paloma Picasso “love and kisses” earrings (for obvious reasons). I decide on my bangle watch, the one I bought from a street vendor on 57th Street, instead of the Cartier from Jim. My wedding band, which in thirty years I’ve removed only during brief hospital stays, will be reminder enough that I have a husband who loves me.

  “Que linda!” says Carmen as she watches me gather my purse, keys, a bottle of Evian for the car ride. “You meet Mr. Jim in the city?”

  “No, not today,” I say breezily. “I’m having coffee with an old friend.”

  I could swear, there’s a look on Carmen’s face—not disapproving, but knowing. “Have a nice time,” she says.

  “You have a good day, too,” I say, avoiding her eyes. “Hasta mañana.”

  __________

  The burnished metal and smoky glass of the Carnegie Grand Hotel in the far West Fifties of Manhattan rises to thirty floors on the same spot where stood, until recently, a cluster of louche four-story row houses.

  Years ago, I took some artwork to be framed at a ground-floor shop in one of those buildings. A young Vietnamese couple owned the store. The wife was also a pastry chef who worked part-time in a small bakery nearby. They lived above the framing shop with their two young children. Economic and political exigencies have led city leaders on a mission to sanitize many of these streets that surround the theater district; formerly apprehensive out-of-towners can now disembark fearlessly from their tour buses and march off to matinees of The Phantom of the Opera and shopping sprees at the Disney store. Hookers and drug dealers have left the neighborhood, but so have the residents who were running storefront businesses and living in the rent-controlled tenement apartments that gave way to smart hotels and co-ops and shops they couldn’t afford. I wonder, as I pull into the garage adjacent to the Carnegie Grand, whatever happened to the framer and the pastry chef?

  “Will you be here overnight, ma’am?” asks the parking attendant.

  “Just visiting a guest at the hotel.”

  “Here you go then,” he says, tearing off and handing me half of a perforated ticket that says: ONE DAY ONLY. “Just leave the keys in the car. And enjoy your stay.”

  I’m early; he said ten, didn’t he? There’s the coffee bar he mentioned. I’ll just . . .

  “Bella! Beth . . . you came! My God, you came.”

  He’s grown a beard since I last saw him. Like his hair, it’s more silvery-grey than blond. His blue shirt is the same color as his eyes. And he is as gorgeous as he ever was.

  “Let me look at you,” he says after we hug. He grabs both of my hands and steps back, taking me in. “Unbelievable, you haven’t changed since Italy. Still beautiful!” I can’t seem to speak.

  A waiter is trying to wave us to a tiny bistro table in the center of the room. “Do you have something quieter?” Andrew asks him.

  “Of course, sir. How about the booth in the corner?” Andrew and I are led past groups of youngish tourists chattering in German, French, Australian English.

  “This hotel came highly recommended by one of my students,” Andrew says as he sits next to me in the booth. “He said lots of Italians stay here. So far, I’ve heard every language spoken in this lobby, except for Italian. At the Salinas College of Music, where I teach, I’m quite famous for being obsessed with Italy. My students make fun of me for the way I behave whenever the subject of anything Italian comes up. Someone mentions Tosca, and before long I’m holding forth on the incomparable experience of hearing opera at La Scala, and then I find myself telling them where to eat in Rome and where to buy cameos in Naples, and my students are yawning. Oh, Bella, I’m rambling now; please stop me. You haven’t said a word.” He reaches for my hand, holds it gently. We stare into each other’s faces.

  “You promised me a cappuccino,” I finally say. “Let me get some caffeine in me, and I’ll tell you how my life has turned out. And then you can let me know just why we are here, together in this place, after all this time.”

  I start with Ithaca. I say nothing about being so despondent when Andrew abandoned me that I was unable to make real plans for myself. I tell him about meeting and marrying Jim, moving to New York and then Connecticut. Becoming a mother. Sonya Needham, Cayuga House, graduate school. Being in practice as a psychotherapist. Andrew breaks in a few times to ask questions. “How are your friends Sarah and Miriam?” he wants to know. And, “You’re married to that Gillian? Jeez! Even I’ve heard of him, the Wall Street wunderkind.” I blush, feeling a pang of guilt at hearing Jim’s name on Andrew’s lips.

  Andrew brings up having run into Sarah in Chicago. “I nearly called you after that,” he says. “But I lost my nerve.”

  “Why?”

  “Stupid male pride. Afraid of making a fool of myself. Seems ridiculous now.”

  Refills of cappuccino keep coming. I realize I’ve been going on for over an hour; the hotel staff is setting up for lunch. To appease our waiter, we order sandwiches. I show Andrew my children’s high school graduation pictures. “They’re beautiful,” he says. “Both blond, too. Your son seems to resemble you more than your daughter does. What are their names?” My voice breaks when I say Adam’s name.

  It takes another half hour to tell Andrew about Adam’s life and death. From time to time, tears well in Andrew’s eyes, and he shakes his head in sympathy and sorrow. I look away but keep talking. I end my story on an upbeat note—how well Nicole is doing at school, how close we are.

  “Did you ever imagine, when we were young, that life could turn out to be so difficult?” he asks.

  “Of course not,” I say. “And we wouldn’t have believed anyone who tried to tell us. At least we had a chance to be carefree for a while. I hear stories all day long from patients who have regrets about missed opportunities.”

  “Don’t you miss it, that carefree feeling?”

  I am remembering—and not with forgiveness—how Andrew’s love of freedom had once meant more to him than loving me.

  “I think it’s your turn to talk,” I say, trying not to sound like too much of a therapist. He pulls out photos of two handsome teenaged boys. The older one—Andrew tells me his name is Ian and he’s eighteen—has curly brown hair and a serious look in his eyes.

  “He’s the picture of Marcie, my wife,” Andrew says. “And he’s like her in every way, which is both a blessing and a curse. He just started college at San Francisco State, where his mother went to school, of course.” The younger boy, Benjamin, is all Andrew—straight platinum hair in need of a trim, toothy smile, piercing sky-blue eyes.

  “Ben is thirteen,” Andrew says. “And autistic. We knew before he was even a year old that something was wrong. He never responded to things the way Ian had, the way healthy babies do. Once we heard the diagnosis, our lives changed forever. This is one of the few pictures I have of him smiling.

  “Around the time Ben was diagnosed, I was offered a job at Curtis, in Philadelphia, with a tie-in to the symphony. The big break, the kind of thing young composers dream about. But I turned it down because of Ben. I figured if I stayed where I was, in a small school in Salinas, California, I’d have a reasonable schedule that would allow me to give Ben the attention he needed. Marcie is a sales rep for a textbook publisher. She travels all over the West, and she’s never been sorry that her job keeps her on the road. I don’t mea
n to make her sound like a bad mother—she loves the kids—but with Ben, she never took on the project of raising him. And it’s a project, I can tell you.”

  I say, “When I first realized that Adam was not well, that he needed care around the clock if he was going to get better, I remember thinking what a blessing it was that both my children had been healthy up until then. Raising a healthy child is enough of a challenge. But a kid with special needs . . .” I shake my head.

  “It’s indescribable, what it does to a family, to a marriage,” Andrew says. “About a year ago, Marcie got involved with someone else—a doctor. I didn’t know about him until she filed for divorce. He has grown, healthy kids and a booming medical practice in Washington state. He’s what Marcie considers successful. I think she was just holding things together with me until Ian left for school. With him gone, there’s no reason to pretend we’re a happy family anymore. She’s already moved her things to her new love’s big house outside Seattle.”

  Andrew, in a loveless marriage all these years?

  “What about Ben?” I say.

  “That’s the complicated part. At first, it didn’t occur to me that Marcie would want to take him with her. I’ve been his primary caregiver. And I’ve managed to make a life for Ben that suits him. I have faith in the doctors who treat him, and Ben does pretty well at the special school he goes to. Marcie wants him at a residential place for kids with autism—somewhere near where she’ll be living. It’s not that she wants to take care of him herself, but she’s concerned that people will think she abandoned her son if she leaves him with me. Might not look good to her new crowd of friends. Ben’s needs have nothing to do with any of this. But she’s willing to spend as much of the anesthesiologist’s money as necessary to take Ben from me.”