Crazy in Love

by Luanne Rice

  “Thank you,” I said, turning to face him. “I really enjoyed that.”

  “So did I,” Mark said. “You’re . . . you’re a wonderful woman, Georgie. I like being with you. I wish you weren’t married.”

  Looking directly into his eyes, I realized we were practically the same height. He took one short step toward me, held me in his arms, and kissed me on the lips. His mouth was soft, and his tongue parted my lips just slightly. His fingers tangled in my hair. For the first time in eight years I was kissing a man without bending way back to accommodate his height. I remained purely analytical throughout the kiss, but the moment we stepped apart, my left hand clasped in his right one, I fainted.

  SECONDS AND A LIFETIME later, I came to. I lay on the sidewalk, a crumpled heap, and Mark was trying to straighten me out. He was pulling on one leg, saying, “Georgie, please wake up!” He was so busy, he didn’t notice that my eyes were open, watching him.

  “I’m okay,” I said, after a bit.

  He crawled on his hands and knees to sit beside my head. He tried to slide his briefcase under my hair, as a sort of bulgy leather pillow, but I struggled to sit up.

  “Lie back,” he said. “You can’t stand yet. What happened?”

  What had happened? Staring at the pale summer sky, I reflected. The unthinkable had occurred and another man’s lips had touched mine, but of course I couldn’t tell him that. “I think the heat got me,” I said.

  “Really? I was just thinking it feels like autumn. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think so,” I said, though I did feel rather woozy still. “Help me up?” I asked.

  By now the waiters and the maître d’ had noticed me lying on their sidewalk, and had rushed out to help. “Madame, Señora, Missee Sahib, dear lady,” voices were saying in all languages.

  “If someone could just call me a cab,” I said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mark said. “I’m taking you back to your hotel.”

  The last thing I wanted was to go anywhere near a hotel with Mark, but I had no choice. I still felt weak, as though I might faint again. He directed the maître d’, he of the recently greased palm, to fetch his car from a nearby garage, and he wouldn’t let me stand until it arrived. Driving to the hotel, he kept casting sidelong glances at me, as if to make sure I was still conscious, or as if he had a question he could not quite bring himself to ask. In the hotel lobby he asked someone to vacate their chair, and he pushed me into it. Then he went to the reception desk, spoke to someone for a few minutes, came to me with my bill and a charge slip for me to sign.

  “Thank you, Mark,” I said, really touched by his taking care of me.

  “You scared me back there. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Did it bother you that I kissed you?”

  I smiled, because suddenly it seemed ridiculous that not only had it bothered me, it had momentarily stopped my heart. “No,” I said.

  “Well, I’m glad of that. Come on—I’ll drive you to Penn Station.”

  The Colonial stood on Track 13. Mark walked aboard with me, found me a seat, heaved my bag onto the overhead luggage rack. He kissed me again, this time on the cheek.

  “I think you should see a doctor,” he said. “It’s not that hot out, so I don’t think you fainted from the heat. I’m going to call you this week, to make sure you’re okay. Will you give me your number?”

  I hesitated, but then I reached into my bag for a notepad. I wrote down my address and telephone number.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I think your train is about to leave, so I’d better get off.”

  He stood on the platform, waving at me. I waved back, watching his palomino hair shine like a beacon in the hellish murk of Penn Station, until the train pulled away. I think he blew me a kiss. As soon as we turned a corner, I changed seats, to one across the aisle from which I could see Long Island Sound when it came into sight. I wanted to get as far from New York, from the scene of the kiss, as soon as possible, while at the same time wanting to relive the moment he had pulled me to him. I trembled as the feelings dueled, and for a moment I thought I might faint again.

  When people get married, they make private vows that have nothing to do with ceremony or tradition. Two of the great-aunts had told me they had not taken off their wedding rings since their wedding days. Pem and Granddamon had changed sides of the bed the fourteenth of each month, to symbolize their wish to never get into a rut. Adultery seemed impossible to me, so I had privately vowed to never kiss another man but Nick. The day of our wedding I stood beside him, in my white dress, in the little seaside chapel. I remember the priest speaking in solemn tones, the whir of the ceiling fan, Clare in her yellow dress in the corner of my vision. Nick held my hand so lightly, and I remember the secret thrill I had felt when he began making circles on my palm with his thumb. The priest had asked, “Do you, Georgiana Agassiz Mary Swift, take this man, Nicholas Gabriel Symonds, to be your husband?” My lips quivering, my heart racing, I had said, “I do,” and it was the most solemn moment in my life. As Nick kissed me at the altar, I was thinking, “From this moment on, I will never kiss another man.” And that thought was comforting, full of pure joy, not unlike the feeling I had had walking out of algebra class one late May, thinking, “I will never take another math test.”

  My vow broken, I traveled eastward, toward home. The image of Nick, whom I had betrayed, filled my head and nearly broke my heart. Nick in London, working so hard, struggling in his career so that we could have a good life. I had cheapened that with one easy pucker. The image of Mark, with his worried green eyes and death-defying approach to life, wanted to enter my mind, but he was banished for the moment. This train ride belonged to Nick. I would confess the kiss to him at the first possible moment. I thought of him so intensely, repledging my love for him the whole way home, that by the time the train pulled into Old Saybrook, I had nearly forgiven myself.

  11

  THE LOCAL TAXI DROVE ME ACROSS THE bridge to Black Hall. I welcomed familiar landmarks: the marshes, silvery in twilight; the lighthouses blinking across the river; the fish market. These things Nick loved so much, he was willing to fly into New York each day just so he had them to come home to. Forgiveness was total by the time I paid the cabdriver. I lifted my bag from the trunk, all feelings of faintness gone, and walked up the shadowy path to my house.

  “Georgie!” came Clare’s voice from Honora’s porch.

  “Hello!” I called. She ran across the yard, and I saw in her face that something was wrong. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then she hugged me.

  “Mother had a heart attack,” she said.

  We sat down together on the cool ground. “Don’t tell me she’s dead,” I said. “Please don’t say that.”

  “She’s not. She’s in the hospital, in New London. I just got home from seeing her. It was fairly serious, though. The doctors won’t know how much damage there was for a while, and she’s in Intensive Care.”

  Clare and I were crying, our arms around each other. “It was awful, Georgie,” she said. “She was so happy about that story in the New York Times. I mean, she was at the drugstore by six this morning, waiting for the papers to be delivered. She bought about twenty copies, then had second thoughts because she wanted everyone in town to be able to read it. So she drove up to Middletown, where we don’t really know anyone, and bought fifty copies.”

  “She had the heart attack in Middletown?” I asked, dreading to hear the details.

  “No. She came back home and called me over. She was so excited! She was calling everyone, and I mean everyone—the Bennisons in Providence and Fort Worth, Dr. Nayab in Woods Hole, the Bouchers, Peg Malley. Her favorite part was where John Avery calls you a visionary.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I noticed she was getting short of breath. I said, ‘Mom, knock off the calls for a while.’ Or something like that. I don’t know,” Clare said, frowning,
trying to remember. “Then she touched her chest, then started flexing her arms a few times. She looked like she was in pain, and she said, ‘Sweetie, I think I’m having a heart attack, call Dr. Cooke and tell him we’re coming in.’ God, she was so calm.”

  “That is just like Honora, in total control, even at a time like that. Clare, will she be all right?”

  “We just don’t know. She looks so frail, with the oxygen mask on and tubes in her arms. You can see her tonight, if you want. People in Intensive Care can have visitors all through the night. Donald’s flying home now, to be with Eugene and Casey. I tried to call you at the hotel, after I drove her to the hospital and the doctor said she was stable, but you had just checked out.”

  “What about Pem?”

  Clare shook her head. “Doesn’t have a clue. Keeps asking me, ‘Where’s your mother?’, acts as though she doesn’t understand the word ‘hospital.’ She can’t bear the idea, so she’s playing stupid.”

  “We’ll have to take care of her until Honora comes home.”

  “I know.”

  I told Clare about the kiss. “I feel as though this is my punishment,” I said. “My mother has a heart attack because I kissed another man.”

  “She would have one if she knew,” Clare said, and we laughed for a second. Then she turned on me. “That really is self-centered, thinking Mom had a heart attack because of a little kiss. God, I’m so sick of the perils of your marriage and now the perils of your love life. Grow up, Georgie.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stung. I thought of Honora in a hospital bed, a place I’d never seen her before. Was she conscious? Was she afraid? I had to be with her. “I’m leaving,” I said. “I want to see Honora.”

  “Well, obviously you can’t drive yourself if you fainted today. So you’ll have to wait until Donald arrives, and then I’ll go with you to the hospital.” She sounded put out, but I knew she really wanted to go. I walked into Honora’s house, to get away from her. She had spoken with such contempt. I thought it cruel of her to suggest I had a love life with anyone but Nick; she was making my kiss seem insignificant and momentous at the same time. I refused to look at her.

  “Hello, Pem,” I said, crossing the room to hug her. She stood by the window, a bow of pink yarn tied in her hair.

  “Where’s your mother?” she asked, both palms turned up.

  “She’s in the hospital.”

  “The hospital? What’s she doing in the hospital?” she asked, twisting her hands in anguish. I held them.

  “She had a heart attack.”

  “I’m hungry. Where’s our supper?” Pem shuffled off to the kitchen.

  “See what I mean?” Clare asked, standing beside me.

  “Yes,” I said, not ready to forgive her.

  Donald burst through the door. In our daze, we hadn’t even heard his plane land. He flung himself into Clare’s arms, and they both sobbed. Missing Nick more than ever, missing Honora, bowled over by the force of Donald’s emotion, I stood aside, sobbing also. They peeked over each other’s shoulders at me, then shuffled over, to hug me into their circle.

  “I love her like a mother,” Donald said after a minute. His own mother had died when he was in college. “I’ve lived next door to her all these years, and I can’t imagine her gone.”

  “God, you make her sound dead,” Clare said sternly.

  Donald, hurt, blinked at her sharp tone.

  “She’s the enforcer tonight,” I said. “She’s keeping everyone on their best behavior. She’s not taking guff.”

  “Damn right,” Clare said. Then, to Donald, “There’s chowder on the stove and hot dogs in the fridge. Georgie and I have to go see her.”

  “I know. Give her my love,” Donald said.

  “How did this awful thing happen?” I asked suddenly, feeling fuzzy and bewildered. “Honora is so healthy.”

  “She swims all the time,” Donald said.

  “She’s thin,” Clare said. “How could she have had a heart attack?”

  “Granddamon died of a heart attack,” I said.

  “But he was old. And Honora’s not dying,” Clare said, her voice trembling.

  “I have to get ahold of Nick,” I said. I called, but the phone rang and rang in his empty hotel room.

  “I’ll call him later, if you want,” Donald said.

  “Oh, would you?” I asked, kissing him. With a shock, I realized that I had kissed his lips, as I had many times before. How had I never counted that as breaking my vow? Certainly it was not sexual, the way kissing Mark had been, but lips were lips when it came to my vow.

  Passing through the kitchen, we caught Pem trying to hide a ragged sandwich in her pocket.

  “See you later, Alligator,” Clare said.

  “Not if I see you first,” Pem replied, laughing. Then, once more, confusion clouded her face. “Where’s your mother?” she asked.

  Neither Clare nor I had the heart to answer, so we ran down the steps, leaving her to Donald.

  Honora lay in a hospital bed, the clear plastic oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. An emerald tube connected the mask with a silver plate on the wall from which air flowed. Several plastic tubes carried clear liquids into her arm from bottles suspended overhead. Her eyes closed, she looked unspeakably gray.

  “Just a few minutes, girls,” a nurse said.

  Clare held Honora’s hand, and I touched her forearm. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. She grinned to see us. That look of happiness was so familiar, so unfettered, the same expression that crossed her face every time Clare or I dropped in unexpectedly, that it made me gasp.

  “She just squeezed my hand,” Clare said, smiling at her.

  “I’m glad to see you, Mom,” I said.

  She nodded, then closed her eyes and apparently went to sleep.

  “She’ll tire easily,” the nurse said, coming by to check the level in one of the intravenous bottles. “That’s not unusual after a heart attack. Don’t worry too much about it.”

  “Okay,” Clare and I said at once, eager for any information.

  “Can we see her doctor?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid he’s come and gone. But he’ll be back tomorrow morning. I’ll tell him to call you.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You really should go now,” the nurse said. “She’ll sleep easier without you watching her.”

  “Not Honora,” Clare said, but we left.

  The parking lot was well lighted, nearly empty since regular visiting hours were long over. A stiff breeze blew off the harbor. I felt moisture in the air; I could see no stars, and across the water I heard foghorns, the same ones Eugene O’Neill had heard from Monte Cristo Cottage.

  “She looks terrible,” I said, sitting beside Clare on the front seat.

  “She looks much worse than she did this afternoon,” Clare said, sounding frightened.

  “Maybe that’s common when someone’s had a heart attack?”

  “I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t leave yet. I mean, if something happened . . .”

  “You don’t mean . . . if she died?”

  “Yes, I do.” We sat silently, considering the possibility of our mother’s death.

  “No,” I said firmly. “We can’t think about that. The nurse would have told us if there was any immediate danger.”

  “Georgie, there’s nothing but immediate danger the first forty-eight hours after a heart attack. Anything could happen.” In spite of what she was saying, Clare started the car and drove out of the parking lot. We kept our eyes straight ahead when we passed the funeral home where Granddamon’s wake had been.

  “She’s so young,” I said.

  “It seems unnatural, her being so sick when all Pem’s people go on forever.”

  “I can’t stand to think of what’s going to happen to Pem,” I said.

  “I need a cone,” Clare said, pulling into Friendly’s parking lot. We each ordered cones; I had watermelon sherbet, and she had vanilla ice cream with chocola
te shots.

  “Mine is delicious,” she said. “Want a bite?”

  We exchanged cones, tasted, gave them back. We climbed back into the car, cones in hand. Clare pulled onto Route 156. We stayed on back roads the entire way. Just before we turned onto the road to Bennison Point, I opened my window. My cone contained another few bites of sherbet, but I dropped it onto the road. A minor sacrifice for a very great cause. “Be well,” I whispered to myself.

  “I know what you just did,” Clare said. “And I must say, I’m mildly disgusted that you would even think that something as tiny as throwing out your ice cream cone could save her life.” But even as she spoke she was rolling down her own window, flinging her own cone at a street sign.

  INSIDE MY HOUSE, I answered my telephone.

  “Donald told me,” Nick said the instant I answered. “Will she be all right?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “What am I doing here?” Nick asked, not quite into the mouthpiece, as though he was talking to himself. “I want to be there right now.”

  “Can you come home?”

  “What do you think?”

  It was clever of him, having me answer my own question. That way the inevitable “No” would come from me. “Well, you’re in the midst of a big deal for Hubbard, Starr. If you see it through, you get all the credit. If you fly home, you look bad. The partners would be very unhappy.”

  “That’s how I see it. Maybe I can fly home for the weekend—that’s two days away. I’d miss a few meetings, but I don’t care. I want to be with you.”

  “Then just come back.” Even though I understood, this time I didn’t care. I wanted him home, and that was that.

  “Georgie.”

  I stared out the window at barrels of fog rolling down the Sound. Chalky and lighter than the clear black night, they seemed evil, and I knew they would soon fill the house with dampness. I would have to peer through thick white air to see Clare’s house, and I wouldn’t be able to see Honora’s at all. “Everything is changing,” I said in a low voice. “I went to New York, and when I came back, I barely recognized this place. You’re gone, Honora’s gone. When you come back from London, you’ll see what I mean. It’s all different.”