Spa

by Olivia De Grove

  “I wanted to tell you—after I apologized—that I’m going to be in New York for a while. There’s this Broadway show and.…”

  “You mean I’m not going to have the comfort of a continent between us? Can I have my towel, please?”

  He got up and gave her the towel. “Can I have your phone number?”

  She was furiously rubbing her hair with the towel. “Cliff, I really don’t know how to make this any clearer. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to know what city you’re in.”

  “But you do want to go to bed with me.”

  “What!” She stopped rubbing, the towel half-covering her face.

  “You’re jealous about what happened yesterday. That means you still feel a certain attraction to me. Besides, you said it yourself. If I may quote, ‘I don’t want to go to bed with them, I want to go to bed with you.’ You haven’t changed your mind about that. It’s obvious.” He nodded toward the top of her bathing suit.

  From beneath the veil of towel she looked down and saw immediately what he was referring to. “The water was cold. And I wouldn’t go to bed with you … if.…” She tried to come up with a suitably remote set of circumstances.

  Cliff looked at his watch. “Whoa! I’ve got a game in five minutes. Gonna try out the new pro.” He picked up the tennis racket. “I’ll give you a call at the magazine as soon as I get settled in. You can show me around New York.” He started to walk away and then turned back. “Oh Joyce, by the way, after you left yesterday … we ate the chicken.”

  Joyce pulled the towel from her head and stared after him. Did that mean that he hadn’t …? That they didn’t …?

  “Joyce! Hey, Joyce!” She spun around at the sound of her name being called. Harry and Maxine were walking, arms around waists, toward her.

  While she watched, stunned both by Cliff’s last comment and this overt and unexpected display of affection between two people who she had assumed could not be trusted in the same room together, Maxine looked up at Harry, eyes glittering, lips smiling and parted, and he looked down at her and gave her waist a little extra squeeze. They were acting just like lovers.

  Joyce put the wet towel down and then picked it up again, suddenly very conscious of the skimpiness of the bathing suit. She held the towel bunched up in front of her, trying to conceal what was so obviously unconcealed. Salome and the dance of the seven beach towels, she thought, wishing she had six more.

  “Joyce. We’ve been looking for you,” called Maxine cheerfully. Her arm was still draped possessively around Harry’s waist, and she leaned her weight full against him and flashed a triumphant smile as they came to a stop in front of Joyce.

  Harry, suddenly uncomfortable with maintaining this cosy little domestic arrangement in front of Joyce, relaxed his grip on Maxine and moved half a step to the right, stuffing both hands into the pockets of his grey slacks. They were, thought Joyce, noting this change of attitude with a small pang of satisfaction, part of the suit that he usually wore to the office. He still had on the white dress shirt, too. But the sleeves had been rolled up to accommodate the climate. Only the tie and the jacket were missing, and they were probably lying on the bed in Maxine’s room.

  “Joycee. How’s it going?” Harry gave the greeting matter-of-factly to a point somewhere over her left shoulder. She recognized with surprise that the sight of her in a bathing suit was making him uncomfortable. To counteract this, he was making an effort to talk to her without actually looking at her.

  Sensing his discomfort gave her more confidence. She threw the towel casually over the arm of the chair.

  “You look uh … really uh well, Joyce.” Now that was a good neutral word. Well. It could be applied with equanimity to aging relatives, people you hadn’t seen since high school, or half-naked employees. And Harry embraced it with the relief with which a drowning man clasps a life preserver.

  “Thanks. I’ve had a very healthy couple of weeks.” She paused. “You two look pretty happy. Everything must be O.K.”

  “O.K. isn’t the word,” replied Maxine. “Harry and I have had a long talk. We made an important decision today, and we owe it all to you.” Maxine glowed up at Harry, who smiled down and slipped a tentative arm around her shoulders.

  “I owe you one for this Joycee. I mean it,” said Harry, with gruff good humor.

  “Well, it certainly is a relief to know that you didn’t let my advice on the subject of marriage interfere with yours,” said Joyce, slipping back into her mules once more and retrieving the towel. “I’m not sure I could handle the responsibility of breaking up a marriage, especially the marriage of someone who signs my paychecks. Anyway, what do I know about relationships … or marriage.” She laughed self-consciously and looked around, wondering how to escape gracefully from this tableau before she ran out of mea culpas.

  “Oh, but you were absolutely right about us, Joyce.” Maxine put a restraining hand on her arm. “Wasn’t she, Harry?”

  “Of course she was right. I don’t pay her to be wrong.”

  “But I thought you two had made up.”

  “We did.” Maxine gave Harry a conspiratorial smile. “We made up our minds to get a divorce.” She laughed then. “And it’s all thanks to you.”

  “You mean you’re going to get a divorce and you’re both happy about it?” Joyce looked at Harry for confirmation.

  He nodded. We both decided that we like each other too much to stay married. After all, why bury a good relationship under a bad marriage?” He said with a grin.

  “But, it’s not supposed to be like this. I mean, you’re supposed to hate each other and fight and get lawyers and.…”

  “You’ve been reading too many magazine articles,” replied Maxine. “Harry and I had a good marriage, and now that it’s over, we’re going to have a good divorce. Bradley was right; it’s time we both got on with our lives.” She slipped her arm from around his waist. “I have to go. I’ve got an appointment at the hairdresser. I was thinking about having some streaks put in. It was Adolpho’s idea. What do you think, Joyce?”

  “Streaks would be nice.” Joyce felt that this was all too urbane for her. One minute they were talking about divorce and the next, the issue was hair-coloring.

  “I think you’re right. Besides I’m going to have to look my best if I’m about to be ‘available’ again.” She gave Harry a nudge. “You might just change your mind about this divorce when you see the new me,” she added teasingly.

  “No way. I’m not about to go through another of Bradley’s ‘lunches,’ and I’d have to do that if he heard I was dating his mother.”

  Maxine laughed. Private joke, thought Joyce, who was beginning to feel she had just been transported into the second act of a Noel Coward play.

  “See you both at dinner.” Maxine started off toward the beauty salon and then turned and spoke to Harry. “Don’t forget to ask her about you know what, Harry.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  They both watched until she disappeared behind one of the ubiquitous hedges. And then Joyce sank down on the chair. She had run through so many emotions in the last few minutes that she was starting to feel a little weak.

  “Maxine’s a fine woman. But I’m glad it’s over,” said Harry, turning around. “You O.K. Joyce?” He sat in the chair opposite her.

  “Just getting my bearings. I’ll be alright in a minute.”

  Harry crossed his legs. “Sure is a nice place here.” He looked around to give her time to sort out her bearings, whatever they were.

  “You look really good, Joycee. Different. Younger. Must be all that sunshine and salt air.

  “You look like you could do with a little of that yourself, Harry.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I plan to take better care of myself from now on. I’ve got to. There’s nobody else to do it for me anymore.”

  “How’s everything at work?” Joyce desperately wanted to talk about something she understood. Something no
rmal.

  Harry sat back with a sigh and stretched his legs out in front of him. “O.K. I guess, except for Naomi.”

  “What’s up with Naomi? She should be back any day now. Her fifteen weeks’ maternity leave is about up.”

  “Yeah well, it is and it isn’t.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She got pregnant again.”

  “Again? You’re kidding? I didn’t think that’s what they had in mind when they coined the phrase ‘maternity leave’.”

  “Tell that to Naomi. With the new baby and another one in the oven, she’s decided to stay home and play wifey for a while.”

  “Sounds like she already played that game once too often,” said Joyce marveling at the how and why of it all. “Is she planning to come back to work later on, or not?”

  “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “So who’s going to write the food section and the cooking column?” asked Joyce, mentally crossing her fingers and praying, “Not me, please not me.”

  “Well, Joycee, I was going to talk to you about that when we got back, but since you brought it up.…”

  “Oh Harry, please not me. Please don’t ask me to write the food stuff as well. Writing food stuff is boring. Harry, really boring.”

  He sat forward in his chair. “Ask you? Who’s asking you?”

  “Isn’t that what you were just going to say?”

  “No, it isn’t. So just shut up and listen for a minute. I know you don’t want to take over for Naomi. You can’t boil water, as I remember, so you’d be lousy at the job anyway.”

  “Thanks a lot. And I can, too, boil water. I just choose not to.”

  “Alright, don’t get on your high horse. I’m letting you off the hook, remember? As it happens, I already have somebody else in mind to do Naomi’s job. She’s a great cook. Lots of experience. Needs the job.”

  “Can she write?”

  “I don’t think she is going to be up for a Pulitzer next year, but she knows what a verb is.”

  “Well, who is it? Somebody already on staff?”

  He was hedging. “Not exactly.”

  “Well what, exactly?”

  “Maxine.”

  “Maxine? You want your soon-to-be-ex-wife to come to work for Destiny?”

  “I know it sounds a little strange, but she knows her stuff when it comes to food, and she’s going to need a job. I can’t afford to support the two of us living apart in the style to which she has been accustomed. Not in Manhattan, anyway. So, when you think about it, this is the perfect solution, right?”

  But Joyce was shaking her head. “Harry, this solution is a long way from perfect. I’ll admit we need somebody and right away, but think about the down side for a minute, the way you two used to fight.…”

  He held up his hand. “Used to fight is right. That’s when we were married. Now we’re getting divorced, we won’t have anything to fight about anymore. And it’ll be good for her. She needs to get out in the world, have a life of her own, meet people. You even said that.”

  “Did I?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “O.K. O.K.” What did she do, memorize every word? thought Joyce. “But when I said it, I didn’t think that she was going to be working for me. Cooking is one of my departments, you know.”

  “So what’s the problem? If you can work for me, then why can’t my ex-wife work for you?”

  “Oh Harry, sometimes you amaze me, you really do.” She stood up and walked to the edge of the pool, trying to see all the way to the bottom. Too bad drowning was out of the question. She was too good a swimmer.

  “Joyce, what’s the matter?” He came up behind her.

  “Life is just too complicated, Harry. I keep trying to make it simple, but it just gets more and more complex.” She shook her head.

  “Are you talking about that guy I saw you talking to? The one with the tan.”

  “Partly.”

  “He’s that actor, right?” Harry stumbled around trying to find the right words to ask the question which had been bugging him for the last few days. “Are you and him.… That is … are you two.… Jeez, Joycee, you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean. What I don’t know is why you’re so interested.”

  “Interested. Who said I was interested? It’s just that … well, now that I’m gonna be a single man again, I thought maybe you and I could have dinner one night. You know, I’ll pick up a pizza and a bottle of wine and come over to your place and.…”

  “We did that already, remember, when you were still a married man.”

  “Oh yeah, right.” Harry was at a loss for words. It had been a quarter of a century since he last asked a girl out for a date, and he was trying to remember how it went.

  But Joyce stepped in and filled the void. “Harry, if you want to have dinner one night, we could always go out.”

  “Out? You mean sort of like a date?”

  “Sort of.”

  Harry smiled. It was easier than he remembered.

  Joyce continued. “You know, there’s this terrific new place up in the East Seventies, supposed to be the be-all and end-all of the new restaurants.…”

  The smile faded from Harry’s face. “You don’t mean The American Grill?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Somehow I just had a feeling being single wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked.”

  Epilogue

  “You look happy,” said Trixie, putting one caller on hold and banishing another into telephone limbo as she accidentally pushed the wrong button on the console phone. “God, I hate this new telephone system,” she complained miserably.

  Joyce waited for her to finish grumbling. “Is he in?”

  Trixie nodded. “Mmmm-hmmm.” Then she took a quick look around and lowered her voice to a more conspiratorial level. “Gee, things sure are a lot quieter around here since he and Mrs. Kraft, I mean Ms. Morris, decided to get a you-know-what.”

  “The word is ‘divorce,’ Trixie, and I don’t think it’s really any of your business.” And with that Joyce walked over and knocked on Harry’s door, and then, not bothering to wait for an answer, she opened it and went into the office.

  “What’s with her?” sniffed the receptionist, who had been hoping for a tidbit or two from Joyce to spice up her update on the report about Maxine and Harry getting a you-know-what.

  “Hi,” said Joyce softly. “You busy?”

  He looked up from his desk and grinned like a schoolboy with a crush on the teacher when he saw that it was her. “So-so. Can you stay a minute?” He stood up. “Here, sit down.” He gestured to the chair on the opposite side of his desk.

  But, as usual, Joyce ignored the gesture and sat on the couch instead. Harry, sighing with the resignation of a man who knows he cannot win, came around in front of the desk and half-stood, half-leaned against the corner of it. A new set of protocols was being established here, and he was still unsure of just how to mix his new role as lover with his old role as boss. So he folded his arms across his chest and thought about how good she looked in blue. After a moment he broke the silence. “That was a great dinner you cooked last night.”

  Joyce raised her eyebrows. “Not bad for someone who can’t boil water.”

  “Look, I already apologized for that, didn’t I? And how did you know braised beef was my favorite, anyway?”

  “I asked Maxine.”

  “You asked my wife what to cook me for dinner?”

  “Of course. Who else would know? I suppose I could have asked your mother, but it’s hard to get a medium on such short notice,” she said, teasing him.

  “Was she upset? You know, about me and you. You and me.” He unfolded his arms and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He didn’t know if Maxine might be inclined to make things difficult.

  “Harry, we only had dinner. We didn’t elope. And anyway, she’s really very happy being the almost-ex-Mrs. Kraft.”

  He relaxed a littl
e. There were times he had to keep reminding himself that his marriage to Maxine was just a technicality now, waiting only for the legal decree to reduce it to the realm of memory. It was O.K. for him to go out with Joyce. It was O.K. for him to stay home with her, too, for that matter. It really was.”

  Oh, I almost forgot.” Joyce reached into her pocket and pulled out a small brown paper bag. “Here.”

  “What is it?” He reached for the proffered sack.

  “Your tie. You left it behind this morning.”

  “Oh. I wondered what I did with it. Thanks.” He spoke a little too casually as he leaned back and opened the top drawer of the desk and then flipped the incriminating piece of evidence inside. Then he slid the drawer shut and fidgeted against the desk, changing his weight from one leg to the other. “Uh, Joyce, about last night.…”

  “What about it, Harry?” She gave him a long, slow smile that said volumes of things he had never been able to say to Maxine.

  “I just wanted to say one thing … uh … Jesus, I’m so out of practice with all this morning-after stuff.”

  “That’s O.K., you don’t have to say anything. We both know how it was. No editorial comment needed.”

  Harry let out a sigh of relief. “Boy, that was easier than I thought. I didn’t know if I should send flowers or.…”

  “Just relax, alright?” She stood up and came over to the desk, surprised at now effortlessly they could fit their new relationship into their old circumstances. “You can save the flowers for next time. Now, before you ask where the hell is it, I finished the piece on the spa.” She tossed the file folder on top of the pile of papers that already occupied Harry’s desk and the floor in the immediate vicinity.

  “There shouldn’t be any trouble getting it typeset in time for the May issue. Wanna read it now?”

  “You mean you want me to read it now. Which means that you think it’s pretty good.”

  “You got it.”

  He picked up the folder and opened it to the first page. “O.K. Sit down.” But Joyce remained standing. Harry sighed and began to read. “They call it spa-ing. It’s the eighties answer to whatever ails you. Whether you want to shake off some stress or shape up some muscles; work on your attitude or your amplitude; tune up your body or tune out your life for a while, the spa is the place for you …”