Nell

by Nancy Thayer

  When she got to the boutique, she found Elizabeth O’Leary already there.

  “I didn’t know you were in town,” Nell said, hoping Elizabeth wouldn’t notice that she had come in just a few minutes late.

  “Oh, I just buzzed in,” Elizabeth said, making a graceful silly gesture with her hand. Her rings flashed. “Listen, Nell, let’s leave Arlene here to take care of things. It’s always slow in the morning. Let’s go have coffee. I want to talk to you.”

  Now Nell nearly threw up. If she lost this job—she would die if she lost this job. There was no reason for her to be fired, but Nell could think of no other reason for Elizabeth to want to talk. And she was being so obsequious, holding the door open for Nell, complimenting Nell on the way she looked, when Nell knew that Elizabeth’s clever eye could guess precisely the price of Nell’s clothes and at just which unfashionable department store she had bought them.

  “Listen, darling,” Elizabeth said when they were seated across from each other at Helen’s Coffee Shop. “Order anything you want. You look like you could use a good breakfast.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Nell said. “I’ve already had enough breakfast. If I eat any more, Elizabeth, I won’t fit into your beautiful clothes.”

  “Well, then.” Elizabeth smiled, and ordered two Swiss almond coffees for them. She turned back to Nell. “Listen, darling,” she said again. “You know we think you’ve done a divine job at the boutique here.”

  Nell felt an icicle plunge into her chest. If any statement ever sounded like the preamble to a dismissal, this one did.

  “So we’re going to ask you a huge favor,” Elizabeth went on. “The Nantucket shop is open now after being closed for the winter. And we’re planning to open a new shop in New York this fall. That means we have to be down there all summer—God, the worst possible time to be there, we’ll die of the heat—setting up the shop, ordering, getting things ready. One thing we’ve learned is that we just can’t trust the design and setup of a store to anyone else. It’s the same old thing: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Anyway, dear, what I’m getting at is this: Colin and I want you to go to Nantucket for the summer and manage the shop there.”

  Nell, stunned past words, looked at Elizabeth.

  “Have you ever been to Nantucket?” Elizabeth asked. “No? You’ll love it there. It’s divine. We’ve just loved being there. But we can’t find anyone who’s as good-looking and sensible and reliable as you are to take over for us. People like to drift there. We need someone who will not skip out on us in the middle of the season. The summer season in Nantucket is very, very big.”

  “But,” Nell began, “I can’t just go there. Where would I live?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ll give you our house to live in—and we’ll give it to you rent-free, of course. Why, in a way it’s as if we’re offering you a holiday, Nell. You can walk on the beach and in the moors, eat at fabulous restaurants, meet gorgeous people … people would kill to live in Nantucket for the summer. You’ll have our little house, and you can make your own hours; we know you’ll need at least three part-time girls there.”

  “But you see,” Nell said, “the children—”

  “Well, the children spend a lot of their summer with their father, don’t they? That was my understanding.”

  “Yes,” Nell said. “Yes, they do spend a lot of the summer with Marlow. But not all of it. I don’t know what his plans are. And really, I wouldn’t want to be away from the kids for the entire summer—”

  “That’s crazy,” Elizabeth said. “Here you have a chance for a yummy vacation, no little whiners to slow you down, and you aren’t happy. Anyone else would jump at the chance.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Nell said, bristling. “But Hannah and Jeremy aren’t little whiners in the first place, and in the second place, I enjoy having them in my life. Most of the time.”

  Elizabeth was quiet awhile. “Well,” she conceded, “I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t stay in the house too. There are four bedrooms. As long as they were—well, you know how messy children can be.”

  “Look,” Nell said. “I know you’re trying to do me a favor, Elizabeth, but the idea of going away from my home for the summer just doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “I suppose you’re talking about men,” Elizabeth said. “Listen darling, I don’t know who you’re seeing now, but you’ll find more gorgeous men in one square yard on Nantucket than in the whole town of Arlington.”

  “I’m not talking about men,” Nell said. “I’m talking about—everything. I work hard to keep my life organized, Elizabeth. I work hard to keep my life centered. And my house and my friends and my bedroom and my routines are all very important to my sanity.”

  “We’ll give you a substantial raise in salary and a summer bonus,” Elizabeth said.

  Nell looked at Elizabeth, shocked. Elizabeth must have thought that she, Nell, was negotiating for something, Nell realized with surprise. And all Nell was doing was telling the truth.

  “Look,” Elizabeth went on, repeating herself. “The truth is that you really are doing a fabulous job, Nell, and there’s no one we can find anywhere who can do all you do—who can look so good and be so honest and reliable and sensible. We really need you. And believe me, you will love Nantucket. It’s beautiful. Everything about it is beautiful. Just ask anyone. I wouldn’t send you to the moon, you know.”

  They drank their sweet coffee; they talked more, but Nell knew at that point that she really had no choice. She could run the store in Nantucket, or she could lose her job. Elizabeth had a beautiful smile but a heart of lead. And she had made up her mind; there was no argument Nell could make that Elizabeth couldn’t counter. Fortunately for Nell, Elizabeth countered a lot of Nell’s objections—who would take care of the house and animals while she was gone, how would she manage child care while she worked—with offers of more money. Visions of solvency began to dance in Nell’s head.

  Still, Nell was more rattled and worried than pleased when she and Elizabeth finally left the coffee shop. The women parted ways. Elizabeth walked down to her white Mercedes convertible, and Nell walked back to the boutique. She would have to talk to Marlow right away, to see what he and Charlotte had planned for the summer, to see how long they could take the children. She would have to find some responsible person to live in the house and watch the animals for the summer. She would have to line up babysitters for the brief trips Elizabeth wanted Nell to make over to Nantucket in May in order for Nell to get to know the shop. Well, if nothing else, she supposed this would make it easier to break things off with Stellios. Out of sight, out of mind, and so on, she thought. She wondered how Jeremy was; she would phone him as soon as she got in the store.

  But when she got to the boutique, she found the salesgirl, Arlene, standing bewildered in a pile of their most expensive clothes. No customers seemed to be in the store, only young, glossy-faced Arlene, standing there at the back by the dressing rooms. When she saw Nell, she made a gesture with her hands and an expression with her face that indicated complete helpless confusion. Then a scarlet silk jacket came flying out of one of the dressing rooms, landed against Arlene, and slipped to the floor.

  “That one, too,” a voice said.

  Nell recognized the voice at once; it was Ilona Shell. Nell stalked to the back and pulled open the thick dressing room curtain.

  “Ilona,” she said. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I’m getting ready for the summer!” Ilona said. “I’m getting ready for the summer of my life!”

  The dressing room was spacious and marvelously lit, with mirrors angled on two walls so that the customer could see the back view as well as the front. The third wall was papered in Laura Ashley paper and studded with heavy brass hooks. There was a white wrought-iron chair in the corner and a white wrought-iron table to hold the customer’s purse, shopping bags, and so on. The rooms were beautiful—one would wish for a house so lovely—
but this dressing room had become a disaster area. Clothes were everywhere, so many outfits hanging from the hooks that they were nearly bending under the weight. Some of Elizabeth O’Leary’s most expensive orders were scattered on the floor at Ilona’s feet, orange silks mixed with wheat-colored cotton mixed with black linen. Ilona stood swaying in the middle of it all, red-eyed.

  “Jesus Christ,” Nell whispered. She stepped into the room and sniffed. “Ilona, are you drunk?” For the second time that morning, Nell almost retched. She could no more drink alcohol in the morning than wake up and take a ride on a roller coaster.

  Ilona laughed. “Here I am,” she said, waving at Nell through a mirror. “That’s me, in Three-D; drunk, divorced, and delighted.”

  “Divorced?” Nell said. “Ilona, what are you talking about? You’re not divorced.”

  “Not yet, but I’m gonna be! I’m leaving the old prick!”

  “Ilona,” Nell said, “you’re stepping on the clothes. You’re going to tear that skirt if you don’t watch out.”

  “Fuck the skirt—I’ll pay for the skirt, I’m buying all this shit. Just give me a bill, you know I always pay my bills, Nell. Jesus, what kind of friend are you worrying about your fucking little clothes. That’s all anybody cares about—clothes.”

  “Ilona—” Nell edged her way around the dressing room, began to pick up the scattered garments.

  “I want those clothes!” Ilona yelled. “I’m buying all those clothes! I mean it!”

  “Good, fine,” Nell said. “Now calm down.”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you,” Ilona said. “Well, let me tell you something—you know what you and I have in common? All you can do in your life is sell clothes, and all I can do in my life is wear them.”

  “Ilona,” Nell said. “Come on …”

  “Come on?” Ilona asked. “Where? Where are we going, Nell? Tell me, so I’ll know what to wear.”

  Nell handed an armful of clothes to Arlene, who was standing, fascinated, just outside the dressing room. “Charge these to Mrs. Shell, Arlene, and box them, please. And the other clothes she’s given you.” She pulled the dressing room curtain closed again. She turned to Ilona. “Ilona,” she said. “Stop. Stop right now.”

  Ilona collapsed in Nell’s arms, which made Nell feel rather silly, since Ilona in high heels stood a good five inches taller than she and, with all her blond hair, seemed even taller. But she felt so sorry for Ilona, who was now sobbing onto her shoulder, saying, “I want to die, Nell. I just want to die. I want to die.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to,” Nell said. “I won’t let you.” She staggered slightly. Ilona was a slender woman, thin to the point of emaciation, but she had dropped her entire drunken weight on Nell’s shoulders, and Nell’s knees were buckling. “Look,” she said and gently shoved Ilona into the wrought-iron chair. “Sit down. Blow your nose. Get dressed. I’ll send Arlene for some coffee, and we can talk in the office.”

  But no sooner had Arlene returned with the coffee than the UPS man arrived with some orders and some customers came in. Nell got Ilona into the office, gave her the coffee, asked her to wait. When she got back to the office about fifteen minutes later, she found Ilona passed out, her head resting in the middle of the papers on the desk. Nell didn’t mind. That made it possible for her to call Jeremy. He was fine and hadn’t thrown up again. Nell got some of the dresses unwrapped, priced, and hung up, and Ilona’s dressing room cleaned up before lunch hour. Then she went down the street for coffee and yogurt, went back to the office, and woke Ilona up.

  “Christ,” Ilona said, raising her head off the desk. “My head feels like a pumpkin.”

  “Looks like it, too,” Nell said. “Here, drink this. And here are some aspirin. Do you want to talk, or would you rather just go home?” Nell sat down in a chair across from Ilona.

  “Home,” Ilona said. “Ha. No, I do not want to just go home. I guess I want to talk. I’m sorry to dump all this on you, Nell, but do you realize you’re the only person in the world I can have a fit at? Everyone else I know, from Phillip and his relatives and his friends on, is so—recessed.”

  “I think you mean repressed,” Nell said.

  Ilona considered. “No. I think I mean recessed. I mean that anything and everything that is of the slightest real importance to them is hidden away in a little drawer in their minds, shut off in a cranny behind a maze behind locked doors and steel walls.”

  “Ugh,” Nell said sympathetically.

  “And I’m so tired of trying to get through,” Ilona said. “Do you know something, Nell? I love Phillip. Now I know that will come as some surprise to you, because I know what you think of him—no, don’t try to tell me otherwise, I can see your beady critical mind picking away at him every time he enters the room. Phillip is a pompous prig, I know that. Don’t you think I know that? After nineteen years of marriage? I know that. But I love him anyway. And I want him so much.”

  “But, Ilona, you have him,” Nell said.

  “No I don’t,” Ilona said. “No I don’t, not at all. Never have, never will. My mistake, in wasting this much time trying. Twenty years.” Ilona hung her head, was quiet for a few moments. When she lifted her head, her eyes were full of tears. “Nell,” she said, “I’m sorry about the scene here. Really. It’s just that I’m so frantic. I have an appointment with a lawyer this afternoon, and I’m going to go through with it, I’m going to get a divorce. I’m a beautiful woman—people tell me I’m a beautiful woman—and I’m not as dumb as I look, and there’s got to be more for me to do in life than give dinner parties for Phillip and wear clothes.”

  “Your children—” Nell began.

  “My children are both in prep school, and Lindsey starts college next year. Aaron goes to Europe this summer. They don’t need me anymore, not in the old way.”

  “Have you tried to talk to Phillip about all this?”

  “Nell, I have tried to talk to him for so long that it’s pathetic. I’ve tried to talk to him about it for years. I’ve done everything but send him a mimeographed letter every month. It’s always the same: I nag him to give me more of himself and he looks puzzled and says coolly, ‘But I don’t understand.’ ”

  “Well now, Ilona,” Nell said. “I don’t know Phillip very well, but he does seem to be a more—recessed—person than you.”

  “Psychologically, he’s absolutely anal,” Ilona said.

  “All right. That’s a given, then. And you are, well, the opposite extreme. Passionate, demanding, impatient.”

  “That’s the way you know me, Nell. But you’ve seen me in my house at my parties. You have to admit I can be pretty cool. I can be as aloof as anyone. I can be controlled. I can wait. I’m not a maniac.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Nell agreed. “I know.”

  “Nell,” Ilona said. “I fell in love with Phillip the moment I saw him. I became obsessed with him. I spent two years doing nothing but manipulating him into marrying me. You never saw anyone as cool as I was then—you’re an actress, you would have appreciated the performance! Then I spent nineteen years with this man, loving him, touching him, talking to him, being there for him—Nell, do you know what I do? Do you know what I do? When he goes out of town for a few days, I keep his dirty underwear by my pillow and I smell it. Look at me! I’m a beautiful, wealthy woman and I sneak around my own house holding Phillip’s soiled underwear to my face, breathing in its fragrance as if it were life. That’s how I feel about Phillip. And yes, he did marry me, but he has never once given me a fraction of the passion I’ve given him. My psychiatrist says that some people just don’t know how. Some people just can’t. Phillip is one of those people. Oh God, for so long I thought it was me. I went through hell thinking Phillip told other people his secrets, lost control sexually with some other woman, went just slightly berserk with another woman, that it was me he couldn’t love. But thank God Dr. Kletterman helped me get that straight. Phillip is a person without passion. Jesus, he’s practically without
blood. And I can’t go on with him any longer. I finally told him I was going to divorce him—and he didn’t even fight it. He said, ‘If that’s what you want.’ IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT! I could knife him to death. I could easily just knife him to death! I would love to dig a knife into his bony chest and see if there really is a heart in there.”

  “Ilona,” Nell began.

  “His father died,” Ilona said. “We went to the funeral. Phillip did not cry. He was the perfect host later, making elegant dry martinis. His mother died. He did not cry. He did not shed a tear. If I died, he would not cry. If his children died, he would not cry. He has no tears in him. He’s all dried up. He was born dried up. I thought that over the years, if I loved and caressed and nurtured him, I’d—I’d change him a little bit. But no. No. Nell, I even bought leather underwear, leather boots. I mean, it’s the same with our sex; he’s recessed. Sex only made him retreat even further into his shell; he couldn’t even get it up. He likes his sex twice a week, after we’ve showered! Now you know he’s crazy. You know he’s a little crazy. And I’m more than a little crazy if I put up with it anymore! I’ve got to get out while I’ve got some energy and sanity left. And I am going to do it. I am determined to do it. It’s just that—I’m so scared. Nell. Please. Help me.”

  “Oh, honey,” Nell said. “I’ll try to help you. But look, right now I have to get back to work. And you have to get cleaned up and get ready for your lawyer’s appointment. Come over to the house tonight and we’ll have a celebratory meal and drink champagne to your new life. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ilona said. “Great. Nell—thanks.”