by Smiley, Jane
70
Some Weddings
AFTER ALL, the children were excited about it. Even the eldest, who had given up Benetton in favor of thrift shop items and had also dyed her hair black in the girls’ bathroom at the middle school, decided that her parents’ long-standing failure to marry enhanced her own personal mystique. In the end it was Beth who was not so sure.
The separation (which you could hardly call a separation when he was around every day, making excuses why he couldn’t take his computer to his new apartment) had lasted, if you counted up all the actual time apart, 135 nights, 8 weekends, and 12 days scattered here and there) and had confirmed what Beth knew from watching her friends divorce—you ended up with too little money, too much space, and all your free time in the middle of the night, when as a married person you would have been sleeping. Her principled intention to make up her mind about what she wanted to do with her life had come to seem more and more abstract in the face of the chaos her life was made up of. Then one night, she had found herself making plans for her sixties, when Amy would be out of the house. But the only plan she was attracted to was being one of those wiry, wizened old women, whose backyard is a colorful riot of perennials and vegetables, who put on their gardening kneepads with their jeans in the morning, and who walk to the post office at the same time every day, who volunteer and watch the polls at election time. With Him around, she already was one of those women. Her backyard boasted barely an uncultivated square inch, and her after-breakfast walk to the post office was full of the leisurely delights of chatting with neighbors, giving and receiving cuttings, bulbs, and seeds, and spying on what was sprouting, blooming, or fruiting all along the way. With Him around, she could leave the children and take the dog, have a Coke, leaf through the mail, read a magazine article or two, sit on the boards of the co-op market and the co-op bookstore, run the HIV and STD information hotline, and spend one morning a week at the women’s center.
Without Him around, she could only go to the post office on her way to other tasks, there was no time even to pull the mulch off the perennial beds, much less start seedlings, and she kept saying to the neighbors and her fellow volunteers, “I’ll call you.”
Without Him around, it was pretty clear that she was going to have to get a regular job, probably in some department at the university, and then she would have to put Amy in day care, buy some high heels, and actually wear them.
And without her around, He was a mess, and the children could see it, clear as day, and even though her friends advised her not to fall for the temptation of taking care of him, or at least worrying about him—it was only marriage-momentum, they said—she hated to see the furtively shocked and concerned looks on the children’s faces when they returned from his place, or from their outings to McDonald’s. She hated to see them compose masks for her, so that they could feel they weren’t worrying her. THAT job, she had always felt, was a job for mothers and fathers, not for children.
Of course, there was the unfaithfulness, the lying, the betrayal.
But once her feelings stopped being quite so hurt, she had to admit that the lying was a technical matter, the betrayal was to her self-esteem, and the unfaithfulness boiled down to a health issue more than anything else.
The question that perplexed her was the question of love. One night when she actually did get to sleep, she dreamed she was standing on white sand, to her waist in clear blue water, trying to catch darting, sparkling, platinum fish in her hands. When she woke up, she knew that the water was her inner life and the fish were love, and the difficulty was knowing whether after all these years, she loved him, even knowing, after all these years, what love was.
On the one hand, she thought he had aged well, she preferred him to the husbands of her friends, she thought their children were lucky, especially in ways they were too young to understand, to have him as their father, she knew he was a truly kind man, his passion for improving the world still sometimes turned her on, and she always felt a shock of pleasure when she nestled against the warmth of his body. Was that enough to count as love?
On the other hand, given the choice of laying down her life to save his life or the children’s lives, she would without hesitation choose the children, from time to time she felt a sharp sexual desire for some movie actor or another that she no longer felt for him, and she preferred anticipating a really delicious meal to anticipating a night of sex. Was that enough to count as indifference?
It was much harder to get married after twenty years, three children, five cars, and two houses than it would have been after four dates and a weekend in Montauk.
At any rate, she had lost seventeen pounds. That was what a separation was good for.
As for Chairman (until the end of the fiscal year) X, he was willing to concede that Marriage predated the rise of Capitalism, and while the whole institution was tainted with exploitation and consumerism, perhaps it was not FATALLY tainted. The women’s movement, about which he had some reservations when female aspirations were based on individual gain, had, on the whole, shown that an alternative model of companionate marriage was at least possible if not inevitable, and that such a model could coexist with capitalism and afford the participants some measure of emotional and moral security. This model of nonhierarchical coexistence, he had come to think, formed an alternative to older models wherein the triumphant force, be it man or woman, humankind or nature, individual or community, succeeded in overwhelming and incorporating the defeated force. And it was a good thing he had come to think so, because he was the defeated force, and he preferred not to face obliteration.
He had proposed the wedding through the children. How about a cake? he had suggested. How about new clothes? How about a party that you can each invite three friends to? How about throwing rice and everybody getting to walk down the aisle? How about, exclaimed the children, getting immediately into the spirit, the boys giving away Mommy and the girls giving away Dad? How about champagne? How about as many strawberries as anybody wants to eat, and how about dipping them in chocolate sauce? How about, said the third, mixing the wedding up in his mind with a birthday party, keeping the whole thing a secret from Mommy, and then jumping out and yelling, “Surprise, surprise!”
“No,” he had said, “but why don’t you be the one to ask her?”
Later, when she took him to task for that, he said, “I realized right away that that wasn’t a good idea, but I didn’t have the heart to say no. He was so excited.” She scowled, but she knew she wouldn’t have either.
And so here they were. May 20, his favorite day of the year, the average last frost date. For a week, he and the children had been raking and mulching the flower beds, tying old daffodil stems out of sight, heading the tulips so that only the last perfect ones were on display. They had uncovered the roses and pruned them, fertilized the fruit trees, planted broccoli, cauliflower, peas, lettuce, chard, onions, and leeks, thinned the daylily bed, pruned the privet hedge, tied together the peonies, planted marigolds and nasturtiums and gladioli and baby’s breath. For the wedding, the wedding, the wedding, the children had done more work with more enthusiasm than during any spring he could remember. Even the eldest capered from bed to bed, dressed entirely in black but wreathed entirely in smiles.
Now, while the Lady X was inside getting dressed, he was ambling here and there, choosing blooms for her bouquet. Emperor tulips, white and red, Dutch irises, yellow with purple stamens. Branches of lilacs, white and lavender, apple blossoms, plum blossoms, cherry blossoms. The mingling fragrances lifted from the basket he was carrying and made him dizzy with delight. A wedding! How was it that he had never done this before? He set down the basket in the green grass and knelt beside it, then took the flowers in his two hands and pressed them against his face. He could feel their soft petals and rough stems, smell their sweetness. He closed his eyes.
Then she was near. He sensed that before he looked and saw the hem of her new yellow dress. “Hey,” she said. “People are sta
rting to arrive!”
Still embracing the flowers, he stood up. She was right there, her fragrance mingling with theirs, and him close enough to smell the heady combination.
She said, “We’d better—”
He pressed the bouquet into her arms.
Beth felt the scratch of branches and the whisper of petals and stems against the skin of her arms, and also the force that carried them to her. She could not say that she was marrying out of principle, if the principle was love. She still did not know what love was, unless, perhaps, it was that very force, a force that called a response right out of her, right out from under her ambivalence and doubt.
She took the bouquet. Clutched it, even.
He said, “Beth. Beth. Do you take this man? Do you really? I am so sorry—”
And she said, “I do, Jake. Look at me. I am taking him and I do.”
“Okay, then,” said Chairman X, and here came the eldest, shouting and laughing.
ALTHOUGH IT WAS 3:37 p.m. by the hall clock when Nils Harstad came downstairs for the first time that day, he was still wearing his robe, his pajamas, and his slippers. He made an immediate right and went into the kitchen, avoiding as if by instinct all the windows in the hall, dining room, living room, and sunporch that spilled the glorious day outside into the huge, old, empty, and neglected brick house.
True enough, Ivar was taking none of the furniture to Helen’s except an antique Chinese highboy that was their father’s gift to him upon his graduation from college, and the mate to Nils’ similar chest.
True enough, Ivar hadn’t even packed any clothes for the honeymoon in Provence that was to commence in two days, after graduation.
True enough, their intercourse over the last few years, since Nils had joined his church, actually, had dwindled steadily, and what they did have to say to one another always left Nils feeling irritated and isolated.
True enough, marriage to Helen seemed, at least so far, to be making Ivar “happy.”
True enough, Nils had his own life.
True enough, he was more relieved than he had let on to anyone that the young wife and the six toddlers and the transfer to Poland were not to be a part of it.
Nils sighed, shuffling like an old man from the door end of the kitchen to the coffee end. The coffee, steaming hot since early morning, had cooked down to pure caffeine, bitter as wormwood.
Once he drank it, he could think of nothing else to do except go back upstairs and get back into bed.
The phone rang. Since it was right there and he didn’t have to move even a step, he picked it up.
The voice said, “I know for a fact that she brought another box over there, because I can’t find the vise grips that I bought here last winter, or that roll of telephone wire, either one. I can’t find a damned thing! Where did you say she went to again?”
“Bolinas, California,” said Nils.
“What’s her phone number again?”
“She doesn’t have one. I told you that.”
“Then, what am I going to do?” Father’s voice modulated suddenly from angry to querulous.
Nils let the question rise out of the phone and suspend itself in his brain, in the air of the kitchen. He didn’t answer, but let Father wait at the other end for a long time, long enough for them both to actually contemplate their prospects for the next twenty years. He said, “Is that buyer still interested in your house?”
“Could be. I don’t know. That was forty-three thousand dollars—”
“You can—” said Nils, and stopped.
“Down the drain! What was the matter with that girl?”
It wasn’t too late. Father hadn’t heard him, and he could turn back right now.
“Their hands are as bands—” said Father.
“You can go ahead and sell the house and move in here,” said Nils.
“What?”
“You can—”
“I HEARD you fine. You mean it?”
“It’s not going to go all your way. You have to adjust to me as much as I adjust to you.”
“Do I have to pay rent?”
“You can keep the forty-three thousand in a money market account.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll show you.”
“Can I have a little dog? Marly couldn’t stand a dog.”
“I don’t mind a little dog,” said Nils. “Maybe a little dog would be nice.”
“All right, then,” said Father. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
NEXT DOOR to the wedding, Helen opened the sliding glass door of the Martins’ deck and carried her drink into the afternoon air. Ivar was right behind her. Behind him, Howard Martin, Sociology, said, “Go on out. I hear the phone, and Roberta’s getting the dip out of the oven.”
Helen settled herself on the glider and took a sip of her gin and tonic. Ivar sat down, and she smiled at him. He smiled back. They had done a lot of gazing at each other lately, more than Helen would have thought possible after all these years. Ivar cleared his throat. He said, “What’s that over there, do you think?”
Helen turned her head, and put her hand up to shade her eyes. She said, “Doesn’t it look like a wedding?”
“Huh,” said Ivar. They exchanged a glance and a smile. Graduation was scheduled for the following day. The day after that, they would be leaving at last for their honeymoon in Provence. Two weeks.
Helen said, “Isn’t that that little man from Horticulture? What’s his name?”
“Who’s he marrying? I thought he was married.” Ivar craned his neck.
“Maybe they’re renewing their vows,” said Helen.
“Do Maoists do that?”
Helen shrugged. Their gazes caught, tangled again. Martin, the sociologist, pushed the sliding glass door open with his foot and carried out the dip. He said, “Stop that, you two. The last time two people of a certain age got married in my department, two other couples got divorced and a third one went into sex therapy.”
“Ugh,” said Roberta, as she brought out her drink. “It took the whole department a year to recover and three years to analyze the group dynamic! I’ve never been to such boring parties.”
“Your neighbors are getting married,” said Helen.
“Well, it’s about time,” said Roberta. “You know, everyone always said that they were married, but I knew they weren’t.”
“How did you know THAT?” Howard challenged her.
“She had an air—” Roberta began, staring across the fence. Helen looked at her, interested. She shrugged. “She always seemed like she had some leeway.”
“Oh, right,” said Howard, scowling a bit. “Well, I wonder why they’re all of a sudden getting married now.”
“Because,” said Helen. Her gaze returned to Ivar’s as if on tracks, and Helen, who knew as well as anyone that this compulsion to look at her husband would diminish and then disappear, took the time to relish it. “Because,” she said, “not only do you have to act once in a while, it’s also so exhilarating to choose!”
• • •
TWO MILES AWAY, at the McDonald’s in the commons, Bob Carlson, customer, saw Keri Donaldson, customer, the moment she walked through the door and up to the counter. He heard her distinctly when she ordered a McChicken sandwich, a small fries, and a water. Among the many footsteps of all the other customers, he made hers out as clearly as if they had been alone in the room, and he let his gaze follow her as she paused and looked around for a table. All this attention he was paying her didn’t mean, though, that he failed to turn his chair and hide his head so that they wouldn’t make eye contact. Not making eye contact was a reflex with him, probably rooted in his DNA. And, of course, Keri reminded him of both Earl Butz and Diane, two strong feelings that had recently, whatever their original identities, transmogrified into shame. Bob bit into his Quarter Pounder.
But then she was right there, her tray was right on his table, and she said, “Hi! Are you staying around this summer, too?”
&nb
sp; He looked up. She had that beautiful kind smile, the smile he had seen on her face as she knelt beside Earl Butz and stroked his snowy head, the smile that was possibly the last sight Earl had seen in this world. So Bob smiled back at her, and moved his chair aside. He said, “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Want to sit down?”
She sat down.
CECELIA SAID, “Turn here.”
“Why?” said Tim. “The tennis courts are right down this way. You can see—”
“Please? Just turn, just a little out of the way.”
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere.”
“Don’t you want to play tennis?”
“Five minutes.”
He had to thread the Saab between the two rows of cars parked in front of the house, but he noticed anyway how hungrily Cecelia took it all in, how suddenly, when they had passed the house, she settled into her seat with a thump and crossed her arms over her chest. He felt in himself a little ping of jealousy, but also a larger and more precious throb of sympathy with her. He got one glance of the house. Apart from some nice flower beds, it was very modest, especially for this neighborhood. He said, “What?”
“You know. They’re getting married.”
“Who’s getting married?” As if he didn’t know.
“They are.”
“Oh,” said Tim.
“It’s really the best thing. He doesn’t even know how much the best thing it is.”
“But?”
“But.”
“But?”
“But I wish—”
At the end of the block, Tim turned left instead of right. Cecelia said, “Where are you going?”
“Down the alley.”
“No! You’re kidding!”
He turned down the alley. “Curiosity,” he said, “was made to be satisfied.”