by Joy Fielding
She picked up the phone and dialed.
The woman’s voice was nasal and Floridian. “Carnation Florists,” she said with a marked degree of boredom.
“I’d like to order some flowers,” Donna told her, her mind not on flowers at all.
“Yes. What would you like?”
Donna quickly explained, and then had to repeat, that the flowers were for her wedding, yes, her own wedding, and that she wanted enough white and yellow roses to fill a fourteen-by-sixteen-foot living room, the roses to be interspersed with daisies, as would be her bouquet. She had decided to wear the simple white silk dress Victor had seen in the window of Bonwit Teller on Worth Avenue rather than the pale blue one she herself had spotted across the road at Saks, so that detail was all taken care of. It took another twenty-five minutes to work out the details with the nasal voice from Carnation Flowers, but once done, it left only one item not already arranged: the photographers Victor had mentioned as being the best in Palm Beach. Messinger-Edwards, he had said, and he had their number listed in his address book as well. Donna went to turn the page but couldn’t. She was stopped by Lenore Cressy. Her fingers played with the dial. Who was Lenore Cressy? One phone call and she would certainly find out. And then what? She would discover a faceless, long-lost, long-ignored cousin of sorts whom Victor never talked about and obviously did not want at the wedding or he would have included her name on his list. To pick up the phone and dial this woman would be tantamount to the same kind of invasion of privacy she herself detested. She quickly flipped to the Ms. There was still time to find out who Lenore Cressy was, and in a far more honest direct way. She would simply ask Victor about her later on.
FOUR
The fight began almost imperceptibly, neither party able to recall at exactly what moment their discussion became something more, moving from something vaguely unpleasant to something distinctly unpleasant, progressing—or deteriorating—from a discourse to a disagreement to an argument, growing into a debate soon out of control, mushrooming into a full-fledged, all-out, honest-to-God fight. Their first.
“I called the florist,” Donna said.
“And?”
“Everything’s arranged. White and yellow roses. And daisies. Like you said.”
“I thought that was what you wanted,” Victor said genuinely.
“It is,” she smiled. White and yellow roses would be lovely. And daisies. Victor was a man of determined good taste.
“We can have white and pink roses if that’s what you’d prefer,” he offered.
“No,” she said, remembering that had been her first choice, but after all, it was his wedding too. “White and yellow is fine. It’ll be beautiful.”
He smiled. “Well, I just thought, with the room being the color it is.” Donna took a moment to reassess the room. It was very Florida-sunny and bright. White walls pierced by colorful modem lithographs, an Estève beside the pale yellow wet bar, Jim Dine’s series of hearts behind the canary-yellow swivel chair, an imposing Rosenquist over the green-and-white floral sofa, itself flanked by a pale ice-green loveseat, a black lamp on a glass table between them, to highlight the soft mint of the plush carpeting. It was a beautiful room. Victor had a lovely, almost innate sense of design. It was something he was deeply interested in—not just the fact that something worked, but why it worked. The same with art—he was not simply a trendy collector; he had made it a point to be as knowledgeable as the people he was dealing with when purchasing art work. He studied; he planned. He rarely made mistakes.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“I called the photographers.”
“Which ones?”
“Messinger-Edwards,” Donna answered. Victor smiled. “They’ll be here at four.”
“Why four?”
The question caught her off guard. She stumbled. “I just thought four would be a good time. An hour before the ceremony. You know, get some shots of us …” she trailed off. “Why? Isn’t four o’clock a good time?”
He nodded. “Sure.” He paused. “I wouldn’t have done it that way, but sure, it’s fine.”
“How would you have done it?”
He shook his head. “Four o’clock is fine.”
She changed the subject. “I bought the dress at Bonwit’s. I drove in today and tried it on and it looked great. You were right.”
He smiled. “You’ll be sitting around in it for a long time, you realize, since you’ve called the photographers for four o’clock.”
“You want me to change the time?”
“No. Four o’clock is fine. You just have to recognize certain consequences, that’s all. The dress might look a little wilted by the time the ceremony starts.”
“When would be a better time? Five?”
“We’re getting married at five.” He laughed softly. “Forgetting our anniversary already?”
“Well, when? Later?”
“No. We’ll be too drained later to pose for formal pictures.”
“Well, when, then?” she repeated.
“I told you. Four o’clock is fine.”
“But you said you wouldn’t have done it that way.”
“I changed my mind. I recognize you were right. I agree with you.”
“So what’s all this about recognizing certain consequences?”
“What do you want from me?” he asked, his voice lowering in direct proportion to the rise in hers. “I said I agree with you.”
She wasn’t sure exactly why she felt so frustrated; she only knew she felt like smashing him over the head with the Miró lithograph that hung on the wall near where he was sitting.
“Who is Lenore Cressy?” she asked, realizing instantly that her timing was all wrong.
The look on his face told her immediately that there would be no such thing as a right time.
“Where did you hear about Lenore Cressy?” he asked, the question not quite a demand. “Did she phone while I was out?”
“No.” Donna found herself more and more uneasy. The woman, whoever she was, was obviously more than a much-neglected cousin. You don’t get out of your seat for a forgotten maiden aunt. Victor moved toward her.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, his voice remaining calm.
“I just saw her name in your address book,” she explained. “When I was trying to find the number for Carnation Florists. Why are you upset? Who is she?”
“Did you call her?”
“No, of course not. I’d never do that.” She wanted to add that she’d been tempted, but decided it was information she’d do better keeping to herself. “Who is she?”
There was a long pause. Victor’s face relaxed. “I guess you wouldn’t accept ‘nobody special’ as an answer at this point, would you?” She smiled, feeling the tension ease, and shook her head. “My mother,” he said flatly and returned to his seat.
For a few seconds, Donna was too stunned to say anything. “Your mother?” she finally heard herself ask, the question dangerously close to a shriek. “Your mother? I thought you said your mother was dead!”
“She is,” he replied, his voice the same even flat monotone it had been seconds before. “As far as I am concerned.”
“What are you talking about?” She suddenly found herself standing up.
He stood up again as well, and began moving away from her voice. “I said that as far as I’m concerned, my mother is dead. She has been for more than three years now.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Why are you getting so upset?”
“Why? Why? We’re supposed to be getting married in a few weeks and suddenly I find out you lied to me about your mother being alive!”
His face turned angry. “Now just a minute. Watch out before you start calling names.”
“What names have I called you?”
“You just called me a liar. I’ve never lied to you.”
“You told me your mother was dead!”
“She is dead as far as I’
m concerned.”
“Then why is her phone number in your little black book?”
There was a long silence. Donna felt a constriction in her throat, felt tears forming behind her eyes.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know.” Donna sank back into the loveseat behind her, its warm ice tones suddenly cold. “I think you better tell me just what’s going on,” she said.
“There’s nothing going on. Whatever happened, happened more than three years ago. It’s dead and buried.” He stopped; she was staring at him expectantly, making no move to wipe away the tears which were now falling at an even clip down her cheek.
“You’ll run your mascara,” he said gently, almost timidly.
“Tell me,” she said, her hands frozen at her sides.
He sat beside her and took her hands into his. She offered neither resistance nor acceptance. Her hands moved as if they were inanimate objects. Lifeless.
“I love you,” he said.
She laughed. “Now you’re going to tell me you also have a wife who’s legally alive, but that that’s all right too, because as far as you’re concerned, she died with your mother.” She looked frantically into his eyes for some sign that her feeble attempt at humor was just that—a bad joke. His eyes made no denial. “Oh, no,” she said, trying to free her hands, to stand up. He wouldn’t let her. “Oh, no,” she kept repeating. “I can’t believe this. I just don’t believe it.”
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice rising. “Just shut up for a few minutes and listen to me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Shut up,” he yelled. “I am telling you what to do. That is, if you’re interested in hearing the truth.”
“It’s a little late for truth now, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” he shrieked. “Is it? Is that what you’re telling me?” He let go of her hands almost violently, getting up and moving around the room, a grenade whose pin had been pulled.
“You’re not interested in hearing the truth? You don’t mind hearing lies or half-truths; you don’t think anything about calling me a liar, but when it comes to hearing the truth, you’re not interested!”
“Don’t you dare twist this thing around!” Donna yelled, jumping to her feet. “Don’t you dare make this sound like somehow it’s my fault, that I’m the one to blame.”
“The ball is in your court, Donna,” he continued. “Nobody’s talking about blame. Who said anything was anybody’s fault? Why do you have to assign blame? We’re talking about truth. Either you’re interested in hearing it or not.”
“I don’t believe how this has gotten twisted!”
“What are you going to do, Donna? Are you going to hit the ball back or are you going to just walk off the court?”
“Christ, spare me the metaphors.”
There was a moment’s silence. “What are you going to do, Donna?” he repeated. “It’s up to you.”
“Me,” Donna said under her breath, jerking her fist against her chest. “It’s up to me.”
“I’m prepared to tell you the truth if you’re prepared to listen.”
“If I’m prepared to listen,” she repeated numbly, sitting back down. For several minutes, no one said a word. Then Donna lifted her head and looked directly at Victor. Still not saying anything, she indicated she was ready to listen.
Victor took a deep breath. “Thank you,” he said. Another long pause. “A little more than five years ago, maybe closer to six,” he began, trying to choose his words carefully, tripping over them several times in spite of his efforts, “I met and married a girl named Janine Gauntley.” Donna took a deep inhale of air, praying she wouldn’t faint, feeling her stomach begin to heave. “Listen to me,” he continued, aware of her acute discomfort, of the growing blackness in her eyes though she continued to stare directly at him. “We’re divorced,” he said quickly. “I swear to you. We’re divorced. We have been since I moved down here. The marriage was a disaster—I honestly have no idea why—it just didn’t work, and so after almost two years we gave up on it and I moved out. We had no children. There didn’t seem to be any complications. But there was one.” He paused, not without a flair of the dramatic, even in moments of crisis. “My mother.” Donna released an almost silent breath of air, the food in her stomach moving up and down as if on a seesaw. She said nothing, waited only for him to continue. “I told you I was an only child,” he went on, quickly adding, “and that’s true, I am. My parents weren’t able to have any more children. My mother had several miscarriages after I was born, one of them when she was almost six months pregnant. It was a little girl and, obviously, she didn’t survive. My mother never really recovered from that, and I know this is going to sound like a cliché, but Janine became just like that daughter to her. They were very, very close. Too close.” He stopped. “Whenever Janine and I had problems, she always took Janine’s side. It was really like Janine was her child and I was the in-law. And rightly or wrongly, I resented it. But I accepted it, resigned myself to it; it was something I could live with, as long as Janine and I were together. When we split up, I knew my mother would take it very hard, but what I didn’t know was that even after I’d moved out, into my apartment, my mother continued to see Janine, to speak to her every day the way she always had.” He stopped, looking to Donna for a glimmer of understanding. He saw only puzzlement, a slight furrowing of her eyebrows. “It was like—like she threw all her support behind the woman who’d made my life miserable for two years. Maybe I’m not explaining it right, I don’t know, but I felt, I really felt, betrayed. Yes, betrayed. That’s the word. I just couldn’t stand that the two of them should stay friends. It was over with Janine and me. I wanted her out of my life.” His voice grew more intense with each recollection. “Finally, I offered my mother the choice. Janine or me—her son.” He shook his head. “It may sound petty or childish now, I don’t know. But it was something that was very important to me at the time, and that’s the main thing. Not how important or trivial it was to anyone else, but how much it meant to me.” He stopped again, finding it increasingly difficult to persist. “I—uh—I told my mother how I felt; I told her I thought her choice was clear, but—well, it wasn’t even that she chose wrongly, it was—” He stopped for a full second then continued. “She hesitated.” He stopped again, obviously still unable to grasp the psychology behind what had taken place. “I offered her a choice between her own son and someone who’d come into her life only two years before, and she hesitated. So I said that as far as I was concerned, she had obviously made her choice; there was nothing more for either of us to say, and that I would clear out of her life. And I did. I quit my job; I packed my bags and I moved to Florida.” He looked lovingly at Donna. “Close your mouth,” he said gently. “A bee will fly in.”
She ignored his attempt at levity. “You just picked up and left everything,” she said amazed.
“I left nothing,” he said. “Not everything. There was nothing there to leave.”
“You haven’t seen your mother since?” He shook his head. “Does she know where you are?”
“She knows.”
“And?”
“Nothing,” he said. “She’s phoned a few times, but I have nothing to say to her.”
“After all this time?”
“Some hurts don’t die.”
“Mothers do,” Donna said flatly. “Is what she did really so unforgivable?”
Victor shook his head in bewilderment. “I thought so,” he said. “Maybe I’m wrong. I just know I’m still not ready to see her again.” He sat down beside Donna. “I know that it was never my intention to lie to you. When I told you she was dead, I had no idea I’d be proposing two months later. By that time, especially after hearing so much about your own mother, how you felt about her, I didn’t know how to tell you the truth. I knew you’d never understand.” He shook his head again. “For a man who prides himself on his common sense, it was an uncommonly senseless way to handle things.
”
Donna nodded her head in silent agreement. “And your ex-wife?”
“What about her?”
Donna felt her anger returning. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been married before?”
“As far as I’m concerned, the present was all that was—is—important.”
“Stop saying that,” Donna said, standing up.
“Saying what?”
“ ‘As far as I’m concerned,’” she repeated. “You keep saying that! Unfortunately, your ‘concerns’ aren’t the same as the facts. Don’t you think I had the right to know?”
“No,” he said, rising and standing beside her. “No. I didn’t see how a previous marriage had anything to do with us. There were no children involved. I haven’t had any connection with Janine in years. I’m certainly not planning on seeing her again in the future.” He moved around. “I didn’t see—I don’t see,” he emphasized, “how a discussion of my previous mistakes could have any bearing on our lives together.” Donna groped for words to refute him. “Have I ever asked you anything about your past? About old boyfriends?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Donna protested. “I was never married before!”
“Did I ask you that?”
“You didn’t have to. I told you everything about me anyway. I didn’t wait to be asked.”
“Well, I’m different than you are. Is that so awful? So wrong? That I’m different than you are?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What, precisely, is the point?”
“The point is you should have told me.” She collapsed back into the loveseat. He moved slowly toward her, eventually stopping in front of her, lowering himself to his knees.
“Would it have made any difference?” he asked. “Would it have changed your feelings for me if I’d told you I’d been married before?”
“Not then,” she answered.
“And now?” he asked, his eyes becoming instantly cloudy, catching Donna by surprise. She had not been prepared for his tears. “Does it make a difference now in the way you feel about me?”
Donna shook her head. “I don’t know.” She paused. “I just feel like someone’s come along and kicked all the air out of me.”