The Widow's Season

by Laura Brodie

  The old lady drinks, the mother drinks,

  This woman drinks, that man drinks,

  A hundred drink, a thousand drink.

  “I think I want a beer,” Nate whispered at her cheek, but Sarah was lost in a mute state of sublimity. It seemed that every line was written expressly for her—the arbitrariness of fate, the solace of alcohol, the desperate need for companionship. Especially in the Court of Love, when Colleen sang with a choir of boys, her voice high and sweet:

  The girl without a lover

  Misses out on all pleasures

  She keeps the dark night

  Hidden

  In the depth of her heart;

  It is a most bitter fate.

  How well Sarah knew that sense of missed pleasures, the dark night of the soul, extended, in her case, into three years of festering gall. And now the soprano was lost in an ecstatic vision: “Stetit puella/rufa tunica,”

  A girl stood

  in a red tunic;

  if anyone touched it,

  the tunic rustled.

  Eia!

  Each exclamation was a sweetly descending melody. The baritone was wooing her, “Come, come, come,” and Colleen was giving way in a quiet lullaby: “I submit my neck to the yoke;/I yield to the sweet yoke.”

  Colleen lifted her voice two octaves for the climactic “Dulcissime!”—winding the line down a small flight of tonal stairs. Then suddenly she leaped to an even higher pitch—“Ah! I give myself to you totally!”—and in a few more minutes the music came to its conclusion, ending with a return to the crashing gong, the wheel of fate, and the clatter of the audience’s applause.

  Sarah remained seated when the crowd rose to leave. She wondered if Nate was familiar with the text; he hadn’t been reading the translation. She wondered if he knew that this entire piece was an extended call to love, building toward a woman’s high-pitched orgasm. But of course he must know. For what else was this day, except one long, elaborate seduction?

  She didn’t care. It felt good to sit in a concert hall with a handsome man, her bare arm pressed against his jacket’s soft cashmere. It felt good, in the lobby, to slip her arms into her coat while Nate held the collar. It felt even better, after the concert, to take a cab to a Georgetown café and share a chocolate mousse, their silver spoons clicking as they leaned over the table.

  The girl without a lover/Misses out on all pleasures, she thought as they walked arm in arm across the Mayflower lobby. She keeps the dark night/Hidden/In the depth of her heart. When Nate thanked her for the evening and turned toward his adjoining door, she took both of his hands and placed them in the small of her back. Lifting her crimson fingernails, she undid his necktie, letting it dangle from his collar. Slowly she unbuttoned his $180 shirt, placing a kiss on his throat, his chest, his stomach. An end to restraint, she told herself. An end to renunciation. She would dedicate herself to the pleasures of the moment. I submit my neck to the yoke, she thought. I yield to the sweet yoke.

  • 26 •

  Hedonism was easy in a hotel room, in a city with ten thousand Sarahs, where no one knew her history or her husband. Within this modern-day Mayflower Sarah imagined that she could sail to a New World. She could become a different woman, a fertile woman, a woman with a lover who dwelled upon her fingers, her belly and lips with infinite tenderness. And after all, wasn’t Nate the brother she had always wanted? Or was it only that this room, with its neutral carpet, beige walls, and anonymous art, made all identity fade into a blessed haze?

  Early Sunday morning, when the sun began to filter down Connecticut Avenue, Sarah rose and pulled the curtains tight. She wanted to prolong the time before their noon checkout. Twelve o’clock loomed like Cinderella’s midnight, but for the next five hours she was determined to be happy.

  “What time is it?” Nate murmured from the bed.

  “Not morning yet,” she lied, and returned to his arms.

  That evening, when she arrived at her house and turned on the lights, every picture of David was a silent rebuke. She walked from room to room, pulling photos off the piano, the refrigerator, and her bedside table. She didn’t want to face his accusing eyes, or to detect, on his lips, the slightest hint of a threat. In taking Nate as her lover she had crossed an unforgivable line, and there would be a reckoning. There was always a reckoning.

  Sarah tucked the pictures away in a dresser drawer inside the guest room. It was time to concentrate on herself, not on images of David. One by one she lifted the mirrors from the guest bed and returned them to their empty walls in the hallway and bedrooms. Last of all she found a screwdriver and reassembled her vanity, then sat in front of its dusty glass and assessed her face. For the first time in many months, she liked what she saw. When she smiled she looked younger; she would have to smile more.

  As she stared into the glass, Sarah tried to construct a twelve-step plan for her happiness—something to lift her spirits when Nate wasn’t around. The first step was obvious: food, glorious food. For months she had dined at home on granola bars and bowls of cereal. Balanced meals came only in mixed company, as if a solitary woman did not merit a full stomach. But now she craved red meat, fresh vegetables, and creamy sauces. She wanted to layer her ribs in Oreo sundaes.

  Early the next morning she headed for the Safeway, where the bulk foods waited in tall, plastic towers. She turned a silver faucet and a pound of basmati rice spilled into her bag. Then almonds, then walnuts, then honey-roasted sunflower seeds. She twisted, tied, and weighed them all, settling them into a row in the back of her cart.

  Next came the pasta aisle, where she shunned the mundane seashells and elbows from her childhood—body parts and bow ties offered in blunt English. Beside them lay an unexplored world—campanelle, cavatappi, cellentani, conchiglie. A feast of exotic syllables, like the names of Tuscan villages. Here the spaghetti did not dwindle into angel hair; it fattened into perciatelli, thick as stereo wires. She lifted a bag of orechiette, just to admire the concave circles shaped like contact lenses. Into her cart it went, along with other unpronounceables, topped with a little bag of stars—tiny specks of semolina, to be sprinkled like glitter on soups and salads.

  From there she moved to the pickle section, with its prosaic strains of English. Here were midgets and babies and bread and butter, in shapes like spears and rings and chips, flavored with a dash of American sensationalism—zingers, snackers, and munchers.

  She placed a jar of baby dills beside her orechiette, thinking that in twelve years she had sampled only the tiniest fraction of this store’s inventory. She had never tasted olives stuffed with hot dev iled chili peppers, never bought star fruit or blood oranges. Grocery shopping had always been a matter of routine, with success measured in speed. But now she resolved to buy something new at every visit.

  At home, she took twenty minutes to unload her trunk. Can by can her cupboards filled to the top, and shelf by shelf her refrigerator filled to the bottom. She topped off her dried-goods canisters with flour, rice, and sugar, until the whole kitchen swelled with promises. Then she stretched out on the couch with her old friends Ben & Jerry, and considered her next step.

  This, too, was an easy choice; she would embark on a bud getless shopping spree. After all, it was Christmas, and the town was filled with wreaths and lights and giddy, red-nosed Santas on fraternity lawns. Consumerism was the American recipe for joy, and who was she to criticize the national pastime? That very afternoon she walked one mile to the local coffeehouse and ordered a pound of Colombian Supreme for Nate, wrapped with a golden bow. For Margaret, she examined the rows of carved cedar boxes with tea bags lying on squares of felt, like pairs of precious earrings. Much too fancy for a Brit who kept her loose tea in a Tupperware bowl.

  She bought a cappuccino and went next door to the bakery, where gingerbread men with peppermint buttons lay side by side with chocolate-death bars. For Friday—her next date with Nate—she ordered a double-layer carrot cake with nuts and raisins and cream-cheese icing. In the
past, she had ordered cakes only once or twice a year, sometimes for David’s birthday, or for a Christmas party. But why not once a month? Or at least five times a year?

  She bought a loaf of sourdough bread and tore chunks from its warm center as she walked three blocks to the kitchen store. Here, among the ladles and linens, were all the items she usually reserved for wedding presents—a salad bowl of smooth teak, with matching serving spoons carved into thin brown giraffes—perfect for Anne. And for Margaret—a casserole dish, hand-painted in Poland, with flowers of royal blue and bright sunflower yellow. She chose a hand-embroidered tablecloth for herself, ignoring the price tag with its ominous zeroes, then stood outside on the curb and adjusted her scarf before the long walk home. There was something about red shopping bags with white twine handles that made her feel like a woman of means.

  Day two was devoted to clothing. Out of habit she began at the local consignment store, filled with college students’ once-worn cocktail dresses. The names on the tags—Liz Claiborne, Donna Karan—were like a circle of wealthy friends whose parties she had never attended. She thought of how in preschool, children’s own names were written in black marker on their coat tags. Now all the boys were named Eddie and Ralph and Giorgio.

  An hour later she left the shop with a rayon blouse and a tea-length skirt, slacks and scarves and thick gold bracelets, and walked two doors down to a store decorated with tutus and nutcrackers. A large basket of handmade gloves lay just inside the threshold, the fingertips knitted into faces of sheep and cows and frogs. She tucked her fingers into a litter of puppies and watched their ears wiggle. How quickly these woolen smiles would be grimy and torn, with children’s fingers gripping at trees and rocks. But she liked the concept and chose a planetary theme for her nieces, silver stars and blue moons and gold, blazing comets.

  Beside them hung the babies’ after-bath wrappers, followed by matching bibs, matching caps, matching socks. Two months ago these racks of frog-strewn onesies would have gnawed at her empty stomach, but now her world was open to endless possibilities. She stroked a pair of tiny slippers stuffed with llama’s wool, before moving on to the jewelry counter for her nieces.

  Finally, she walked to the body shop and purchased basketfuls of bubble bath—sweet pea and hibiscus, vanilla and peppermint. At home that afternoon, she surrounded her tub with scented candles and bowls of inhalation beads, then watched as the windows faded into fog.

  On the third day she rose slowly. It was time to shop for the men in her life, to leave the bath and baby stores and enter a darker world. She knew what she wanted for David, something to keep him company on lonely afternoons, but Nate was a challenge, having already indulged himself in everything a man could desire.

  She drove to Best Buy, thirty minutes away in a larger town, and spent an hour wandering the aisles of cell phones, digital cameras, and iPod accessories. Only one item caught her attention, a lightweight video camcorder. She had never seen Nate using one; these were toys for couples with children, always trying to capture the moment. Sarah cupped it in her palm, lifted it to her eye, and thought that yes, this would do.

  On Saturday morning she and Margaret met briefly to exchange gifts. In two days Margaret was off to England for her annual Christmas visit. She would be back in the New Year with a sharpened accent and a taste for clotted cream.

  “My my, aren’t we fancy.” Margaret laughed as she pulled the hand-painted casserole from its gift-wrapped box. “I’m afraid your present isn’t half as impressive.”

  Sarah unwrapped a pair of hand-knitted wool socks, navy blue with green stripes. “They’re perfect.”

  “I made them for my girls as well. It gives me something to do while watching TV.”

  “You’ll have to teach me. I need a hobby.”

  “We’ll make it a New Year’s resolution.” Margaret placed her casserole back into its tissue paper. “Are you going to be all right over Christmas?”

  “Yes, I’m going to Anne’s house.” Sarah blushed at Margaret’s arching brow. “This time I really am going. Nate’s coming, too.”

  “Oh, really? Isn’t that a risk, taking your new beau to meet the family?”

  “Nate is the family.” Sarah smiled. “Besides, he already knows Anne well, and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “So this is an act of charity?”

  “Oh yes, I’m full of charity.”

  “You’re full of it all right.” Margaret laughed. “So, are we falling in love?”

  “I wouldn’t call it love.” Sarah ran her finger along the edge of the table. “When you were growing up, wasn’t there ever a boy in school who liked all the girls?”

  “Sure. They called him Georgie Porgie.”

  “Very clever. I’m talking about someone who all the girls liked back. Someone who dated a lot of people. Someone you liked.”

  Margaret shook her head. “I was never attracted to the popular crowd.”

  “I was.” Sarah sighed. “At least a little. And now I feel like I’m having my time with the popular boy. Like it’s my turn.”

  “You make Nate sound like an amusement-park ride. Just a little spin through the Tunnel of Love?”

  Sarah shrugged. “It’s better than the Haunted Mansion.”

  By three-thirty that afternoon she was unlocking the door to Nate’s condominium, a cake box balanced in her left hand. He wasn’t scheduled to come home from work for another two hours, but she liked the sensation of wandering alone through his empty rooms. They were so clean, so cool, like a luxury hotel. She poured a glass of Zinfandel from a bottle in the refrigerator, then turned on his wide-screen TV and watched sleet falling in the mountains of West Virginia. Inside Nate’s master bathroom, where the brass fixtures blended with golden brown walls, she filled the Jacuzzi and opened Nate’s cabinets in a futile search for bubble bath—there was the gift for the man who had everything. With her wineglass perched on the tile rim, she stacked her clothes by the sink and settled into the steaming water.

  An hour passed before she heard the telephone ring. Nate’s voice rose from the bedroom, asking if she had arrived. He would pick up some dinner on his way home. Once his voice had faded she lifted a towel from the rack, pressed the drain, and left a trail of wet footprints leading into the bedroom. Inside Nate’s closet she found a long terry-cloth robe, and she wrapped herself within it and crawled into his bed.

  He arrived at six o’clock with a bag of take-out Thai, and laughed when he saw Sarah in his robe, reading on the living-room couch.

  “Make yourself comfortable.”

  They ate in the kitchen, opening another bottle of wine as Nate told her about his day. It seemed that the Fed was likely to hold interest rates steady for another few months. The market was climbing again, and the risks of inflation and deflation were balancing each other out. Sarah tried not to listen. It was all too mundane, this man coming home from the office, recounting his day to the woman waiting with her carrot cake. She opened the white bakery box just to silence him.

  The top of the cake was rimmed with bright orange and lime-green icing, a garland of tiny carrots reminiscent of Peter Rabbit. She cut two slices, then watched Nate’s clean fingernails as he untied the golden bow on his pound of coffee beans.

  “Colombian Supreme.” He smiled. “My favorite.”

  “Wait.” She walked into the living room and came back with a box wrapped in silver.

  “I wanted to give you your Christmas present early, without Anne and the kids watching.”

  “Good idea.” He laughed when he tore off the paper. “I’ve never owned one of these.”

  Nate pulled the camera from its foam packing, plugged the battery into the wall, and examined all the buttons while Sarah ate her cake. Over the next ten minutes he showed her the zoom and the focus, explaining how the images could be broadcast on the Internet.

  “Don’t you dare,” she murmured.

  He inserted the battery and began to film her as she rinsed the plat
es in the sink.

  “Leave the dishes for a while.” Nate lowered the lens and disappeared down the hall. “I’ve got something for you, too.”

  He came back with a small red gift in one hand and the camera in the other, still filming.

  “This is Sarah, a week before Christmas, opening her present.”

  The camera watched as she unwrapped the red paper, lifted the lid from a small white box and stared inside at Nate’s gift, lying on its cottony bed. A ring of gold, coated with diamonds, but not for her finger. It was a bracelet shaped in a perfect circle; the diamonds sparkled as she raised it from the box. Normally she would have refused anything so extravagant. This was a gift for a twentieth anniversary, not a one-month affair. But the stones were so beautiful and the craftsmanship so delicate, she felt subdued. Her spree at the grocery store, her enthusiasm for casseroles, tablecloths, and teak, seemed suddenly foolish. They represented only the tiniest taste of luxury, while here, cupped in her fingers, was the definition of self-indulgence.

  “Do you like it?” Nate asked.

  She looked into the dark eye of the lens. “Yes.”

  When he clipped the bracelet around her wrist she felt that she had been claimed. This circle could not fit over her hand, just as her wedding ring could no longer slip past her knuckle, and they were the only two objects that remained on her body that evening, when she lay down on Nate’s bed.

  In the dark morning hours she remained awake with the bracelet suspended above her eyes, turning her wrist clockwise, then counterclockwise. Her mind was preoccupied, pondering Nate’s motivations, wondering why he wasn’t lying beside a different woman, someone younger and more beautiful, someone like Jenny. She supposed there was a victory in sleeping with his brother’s wife. She supposed, too, that she was the first woman available after his breakup. He was probably the sort of man who didn’t do well alone, who needed a woman’s admiration to feel good about himself. Especially now, with his brother dead, she imagined that their affair was an outgrowth of his mourning, a way of holding on to the last member of his family.