by Rona Jaffe
Say to Laura? To Nina? In his mind they were one: his. But Nina was the good one. Laura was the bad one, who burst into tears unexpectedly and had to take a tranquilizer, who couldn’t eat, who smoked too many cigarettes, who couldn’t stay still or look serene anymore, who sometimes acted paranoid or nagged him.
“The drugs are talking,” he’d say to her in almost a snarl. This would be when they were alone.
“No, they’re not.” Her eyes would fill with tears and she would tremble.
“Look how you’re shaking.”
“I’m upset, you upset me when you use that voice.”
“You’re a drug addict.”
“I am not!”
“Diet pills. I see the stars get hooked. You think you’re the only one? Why can’t you act normal? You have responsibilities … a child …”
“So do you! You have a daughter and you have me. Why can’t we be together?”
“What can I do with a junkie?” Clay would now say in these fights.
“Don’t you call me a junkie, you bastard! Any excuse not to be with me, any excuse!”
“I’ll talk to you when you get detoxed.”
Laura would clench her fists, hold her arms to her sides, trying not to hit him or fly into a million pieces. “You always say what a good job I’ve done with Nina. If I’m a junkie how could I have done such a good job?”
“Flying on automatic pilot,” he’d say.
“Then I’m a good person. I am! Flying on automatic pilot means I don’t even have to try to be good.”
“Women who take drugs disgust me,” Clay would say, and go to bed. He would no longer let her touch him to make up, and Laura wondered if uppers and downers seeped out of one’s pores like a noxious odor. Maybe she smelted dreadful and didn’t know it, maybe she looked repulsive and couldn’t see it, maybe she was cursed. The thought only made her take more.
When Clay had left again for California, Laura would be both depressed and somewhat relieved. No more fights, no more trying to please him. He didn’t belong in her safe little world. And then the next day he would call her and be adorable, as if none of it had happened.
“I thought you hated me,” Laura would say.
“I love you. Are you crazy?”
“But you screamed at me.”
“I feel so pressured when I’m away from the studio.”
“I wish you didn’t have to feel that way,” Laura would say.
“But that’s the way I am. You knew that when you married me.”
By now Laura felt as if they could just have mailed in their fights.
The good thing about summers in East Hampton was that Tanya and Edward came every weekend when Clay wasn’t there. They had the same guest room all summer as if it were their own, and kept some things in it. Edward had several clients in the Hamptons and he got Laura invited to parties with him and Tanya. Mrs. Bewley was still with Laura—Nina’s Boo—and could baby-sit. She was a case of a middle-aged woman who had devoted her life to other people’s families, to such an extent that she was deaf to fights, impervious to tension, immune to the boredom of having no friends of her own at the beach. Laura wondered how Boo could stand it. But she seemed totally self-sufficient when not needed to be available, and she had color TV.
Dear, kind Edward, Laura thought; truly a man of grace. Tanya was so lucky. She herself thought of Edward as no one she would ever be tempted to want to go to bed with, even though he had the kind of classic good looks that made women turn to look at him, but she loved him as her other best friend, after Tanya. Perhaps the same as Tanya. They were the two halves of one coin. Tanya was pretty and chirpy and rounded. She put her head on Edward’s shoulder with the trust of a beloved child, with a look of such perfect peace it made Laura’s throat close with held-back tears. And when Edward saw the longing look on Laura’s face at this tableau, he would reach out and scoop her up with his other arm and hold her to him too.
“My family,” he would say.
“Edward has two wives,” Tanya would sometimes say, laughing because she didn’t really believe it. “Would you like two wives, sweetheart? It would be terribly outrageous, doing it all by ourselves in New York instead of moving to a commune. I think every man needs two wives anyway, then he wouldn’t cheat.”
“Oh yes we men would,” Edward said. “We’d get used to it.”
It was their private joke, the two wives scenario. But Laura also knew, and Tanya knew, that Edward loved them both. Tanya was his wife-child, the love of his life. And Laura was his wounded bird. He would no more dream of making a pass at Laura than she would of accepting it, but he was there for her in so many ways that Clay was not. She sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to marry a best friend instead of someone like Clay whom she loved so passionately. There would never be any horrible surprises, except death. Young people were writing their own marriage ceremonies now, and declaring at the altar: You are my best friend. We will always confide in each other. Clay confided nothing.
On Friday evenings Edward and Tanya would drive out laden with presents. A badminton set, incense, a new wine to try, pâté, a Frisbee, a silly soapdish like a duck. Tanya would always have the latest book about discoveries in the world of the spirit. Edward would have the latest best seller, and leave it for Laura when he left, although lately she was too nervous to read more than a page or two of anything. She and Tanya would invent recipes, and Edward would barbecue on the grill. Nobody said a word when Laura ate only a few tiny bites. It was as forbidden to attack her self-imposed starvation as it was to make fun of Tanya’s belief in her own mysterious powers.
This past spring Clay had put in a pool. He said it would add to the value of the house. When he was there he would swim two laps, in a proprietary way, just to feel he had his money’s worth, and then go back to reading scripts. Laura, however, had begun swimming laps, working up to a hundred every day. The pool wasn’t heated, but she felt that was just as well because a cold pool burned up more calories.
For some reason Nina didn’t want to go into the pool. She said it was too cold, but she always loved swimming in the freezing cold ocean, so that couldn’t be why. Sometimes Edward persuaded her to go in with him, to ride on his shoulders or have water fights, but she wouldn’t really swim the way Laura did. Of course Edward had bought so many water toys that Laura had to take most of them out for any serious swimming. In some ways he was still a child; not as Tanya was, nor as Nina was, but in his sense of joy. He always wanted everybody to have a good time, to be smiling, to be satisfied. And Laura never would be, but he did his best, like somebody bringing things to a sick person.
This Summer Saturday, as Laura would remember it, it was a heavy day and a hot and humid night. None of them slept well, except for Laura, who had her pills. And in the middle of the night there was a shriek, a sound so loud and unearthly and wild that even she woke up. It came from Tanya and Edward’s room, and was followed by another shriek, and another, from a voice so strange that for a few moments she didn’t even know who it was.
She rushed to their room in her nightgown, wondering if Tanya had found Edward dead in his sleep, for the voice had been Tanya’s. They were both alive. Tanya was standing against the wall, deathly pale, and Edward was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her but not touching her. Laura ran to her friend.
“No!” Edward said, “don’t. Let her finish it.”
“Finish what?”
He put his finger to his lips for silence.
Tanya’s eyes were wide open, looking at something neither of them could see. Her lips moved soundlessly. The terrible shrieking, at least, was over, and she appeared completely unmarked. Whatever had hurt or frightened her was not in this room, although Tanya seemed to think it was. Laura felt drugged from the pill and from the unreality of all this; she thought she might still be dreaming, except for the wild pounding of her heart.
“Ahhh,” Tanya sighed suddenly, and moved her shoulders like a cat. She turned and lo
oked at the two of them. “My God,” she said quietly, “I didn’t want to go through that door.”
“What door?” Laura said.
“There. In that wall. It opened up and there was a passageway, and steps. It was like a tomb in Ancient Egypt. I’ve read about it, of course, but this was the first time it happened to me. A part of me wanted to go anyway, even though I knew I wouldn’t come back, but I couldn’t leave Edward. There were so many secrets in that sarcophagus, and it kept drawing me in … to know … to find out. My God, how I fought that power.…”
“This is a wall in my house in East Hampton,” Laura said logically. “This isn’t even a haunted house.”
“Well, I know that,” Tanya said.
“I must go to Nina. She’s probably scared to death.”
“Why?” Tanya asked. “She didn’t see it.”
“Well, she heard you scream.”
“I didn’t scream. Did I, Edward?”
“Just a little,” he said kindly.
Tanya grinned, her old self again. “You were lucky. I could have been babbling in tongues.”
“I’ll be back,” Laura said. She went into Nina’s bedroom. Nina was under the bedcovers, pretending to be asleep. Her flickering eyelids betrayed her. Laura sat on the bed and stroked her silky hair.
“Aunt Tanya was having a nightmare. She’s just a bit louder than most of us. Would you like to sleep in my bed?”
“No,” Nina murmured. “I’m asleep.”
It must have been horrible for her, Laura thought, but she’d rather endure it alone than cuddle with me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Laura leaned down and kissed her. “Good night then. Sleep well, my angel.” She gave her daughter a longing look and then went back to Tanya. I shouldn’t have Tanya in my house, Laura thought, but being without Tanya and Edward was too much to bear, no matter how crazy Tanya acted sometimes.
“I was having a dream too,” Edward said. “I dreamed we were all in Paris. It’s nice in the summer. I miss Paris—we haven’t been there for much too long.”
“The pastries …” Tanya said dreamily.
“Sunset on the Seine,” Edward said.
“The sales,” Tanya said.
“She’s recovering rapidly, you can see,” Edward said with a big smile. He turned to Laura. “Why don’t we all just pick up and go to Paris? You and Nina and Boo too; there are cheap summer packages now.”
“I don’t know,” Laura said. “It’s all so quick for me.”
“Change of scene,” Edward said. He snapped his fingers.
“My vision upset you,” Tanya said.
“I can take my summer vacation earlier,” Edward said. “I can go next week.”
“They’ll be furious at the office.”
“I’ll think up something.”
“Maybe the two of you would rather go alone,” Laura said.
“Why?” they both said in unison.
“I mean …”
“Clay won’t care,” Tanya said. “Come with us. He might even miss you.”
Laura smiled. “You’re so bad.”
“Of course I am.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “You know, I’d like to sleep outside on the deck tonight. It’s cooler there.”
“Good idea,” Edward said. “I’ll join you.”
Tanya lay on a deck lounge, looking up at the foggy sky. “The stars are there even though we can’t see them,” she said. “I always feel comforted by that.”
Laura went into the kitchen to get something cold to drink, and Edward joined her, padding up on silent bare feet. “I apologize,” he said.
“I don’t understand. Has this happened before?”
“Once. It was somewhat different, but out of control. It seems to help when I take her away; she’s less … intense.”
“Why don’t you take her to a psychiatrist?”
“For her religious beliefs?”
“That’s not religion. I adore Tanya, but sometimes she’s such a mishmosh of things she’s read, like she’s always looking for something. I wouldn’t mind at all if it made her feel better, but sometimes she gets …”
“Out of control?” Edward said.
“Yes.”
“Paris helps,” Edward said. “It’s so strongly in and of itself. It’s so … grounded. So real.”
“So that’s why you go there for vacations? I thought you liked Paris, period.”
“It’s both.”
“Then it’s happened to her more than once before,” Laura said, suddenly realizing.
Edward nodded. He looked very sad. “She’s really all right most of the time.”
“What are you two doing in there?” Tanya called.
“Fucking,” Edward said. Tanya laughed.
“Maybe she had another past life and it was as a Frenchwoman,” Laura said ironically. “It was the only life except this one in which she was happy.”
“I’d do anything for her,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“I wish I could help you, too.”
“No one has to help me,” Laura said. “Just keep on being my friend.”
“I always will,” Edward said. “And so will Tanya. You can rely on that.”
“Crazy or not?” Laura said. For an instant she thought she shouldn’t have said it, that she’d gone too far.
“Yes,” Edward said quietly.
“I remember her as a little girl,” Laura said. “We were little girls together and neither of us was crazy at all. In fact, when you think about it, she was much saner than I was.”
“And then you grew up,” Edward said.
“And we’re both crazy in our own ways.”
“Maybe that’s why I love you both so much,” Edward said.
“Well, I hope not,” Laura said. “What if I open that champagne you brought? My sleeping pill has ceased to work and the night is young. Besides, champagne will help us plan our trip to the land of a thousand vintages.”
She wondered if Clay would really miss her. Why not? He was used to her being there waiting for him, the doll on the shelf, the wind-up doll; first Rudofsky’s dancing doll, then Clay’s wife doll, always waiting. She would be an independent woman now, travel to Paris with her best friends, do what she pleased, take her child too, give her some foreign culture. Clay would see his wife had changed. It was the first time she had ever done anything like this. It might not startle him, but it certainly would give him pause.
He had to miss her, he had at least to notice.
6
1944—GLENVILLE
His name was Clay Bowen, and he was nobody. Just another teenager in another small town; a nondescript lanky boy, too light to make the football team, father worked in a liquor store, never enough money; bright enough to wish he could get out of there and be something better than what everyone expected him to be. The town was in Connecticut, just over the border from New York, and it was generally considered that it only existed because it had four liquor stores and people came there to save the tax. It was also very near Greenwich, Connecticut, where rich people lived on vast estates, some of them actually unaffected by the war, some of them even enriched by it. After school, Clay delivered wine and liquor to those rich people who lived on those enormous estates. He saw how bored they were and was not fooled: he wanted to have all those things, but not at the expense of giving up an exciting life. That year, the year he turned fourteen, Clay Bowen decided he wanted to live and work in New York in some area of show business.
When he wasn’t working or in school, he spent his time glued to the radio, and when he had money saved up he went to the movies, and sometimes even into New York to buy standing room for a play or to sneak in free for the second act. When years later people asked him how he got his gift for putting on television series that people loved he would say it was from years of watching too many second acts. Nobody knew what that meant, but it was a good line.
In Glenville, Connecticut, in 1944 he was fascinated by a woman named Rose Ossonder. She was twenty-six, twelve years older than he, and married to a man who was rumored to be over fifty. Clay had never seen Max Ossonder, who rode in a chauffeur-driven limousine, but he had seen Rose, driving in her sporty convertible with the top down. This magic couple, who lived in an estate as large as a small country (it seemed to Clay), even had gas coupons when his father did not.
Rose had been born at a time when women were named after flowers. Clay felt the name became her: vivid, brightly hued, fragrant, thorny. She had straight black hair tied back with a red headband, and bright red matching lipstick. She drove too fast and looked reckless. She was beautiful, and once she smiled at him. One day he had been allowed to deliver a case of champagne to their estate, but he had been let in the back door, addressed by a colored maid, and sent away with a quarter tip, unable to see anything of the house in which his mystery lady lived. But she was more of a symbol than a person to him anyway, and he settled for the girls at school, at least the ones who liked boys with charm, for he always had charm, even when he had nothing else.
Clay had suspected for a long time that he had a way about him, as his mother put it, but it was around fourteen when he discovered how strong his “way” was, and what he could do with it. Partly it was his smile, which transformed his looks, and partly it was the things he was able to say at the spur of the moment that made men look at him with new respect and women melt. He spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how he did it so it would always be at his command when he wanted it. His mother said it was a gift, and his father said it would probably get him into trouble.
He read about Rose Ossonder’s death in the Greenwich paper. The story was brief, and said “accident.” Local gossip was more specific. Rose had shot herself through the heart with one of her husband’s guns, she had bled all over the white carpet: an appalling sight. The colored maid who had given Clay the quarter had discovered her, and had become so hysterical that she had quit. There was not much of interest going on in town except for the war, and people talked about Rose Ossonder’s death for at least a week until they forgot about it. Clay did not forget.