by Joan Silber
I was not, strictly speaking, fully gone yet, as Jason pointed out, but later when he had me hovering over that brink (he was a willful lover, determined in his patience), I forgot myself entirely and scraped my palm along the floor so that I had splinters later. I forgot everything.
Neither of us had much idea how many hours were passing. I suppose we thought we were in that zone of utter focus where moments don’t pass. We were also—how could we not think this?—back in time to where we used to be, returned to the scene of the crime. Who gave it to you? Jason’s apartment was full of things I had picked out and used for a while as mine—coffee mugs, the drawing table, the selfsame set of blue-striped sheets on the bed. We were the ghosts haunting the battlefield.
It got to be late in the afternoon and then it got to be later. Of course I thought of Gabe, who would be home soon and would think I was having a good day at the studio. Jason was kissing the back of my knee while I thought this. His breath and the touch of his mouth felt warm, and my own skin was glowing with heat. Jason moved around to the front of my knee, and then he paused and rested his head on my shins.
“I have to go,” I said, lazily, without much conviction.
“What time is it?” Jason said. “Holy shit.” He rose up out of bed fast and started hunting for his underwear.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s been great knowing you.”
He kissed me then and said, “You’re still very nice,” which was not completely what I wanted to hear.
“Listen, try not to tell too many people about this,” I said.
“You don’t have to insult me,” he said. “That doesn’t have to be part of this.” He was pulling on his pants while he spoke.
I was getting up by now. “Slow down for a second,” I said.
“Who’s rushing?” he said. He threw my bra and one of my shoes high up in the air, just to goof around, as if we were in a French bedroom farce. The black bra fanned out like a kite tail and the shoe clunked the ceiling, barely missing the light fixture.
“It’s been fun,” I said.
“We can have fun, goddamn it,” Jason said, and to my total amazement, he winked again.
GABE WAS READING a book in the living room when I got home. There he was, with his sharp nose and his streaked ponytail; I wasn’t ready for him. I think I wanted him all of a sudden to be a man whose looks I couldn’t stand—or the opposite, I wanted to feel, for certain, a sudden outpouring of love and shame. But I was struck instead by just how comfortable and complete he looked sitting in that armchair. It took him a full minute to look up from the page, and he was still half in his book when he turned his gaze on me. “Hi,” I said. I could be off fucking the entire planet for years and Gabe would still be there reading when I got home. I did envy him, the way he looked just then.
He was reading Kafka’s The Penal Colony and Other Tales—rereading it, that is—probably the first book I’d seen him with in months that didn’t have to do with medical fortitude.
“I was trying to paint all day but I couldn’t get anywhere,” I said, as if he was going to run to my studio to check.
“It’ll kick in eventually,” Gabe said. I kissed the top of his head and I went in to take a shower, something I might have done after painting on any old day. It was a long shower and I was still so languorous that I really liked all those hot, pounding jets of water.
When I came out to the living room in my bathrobe, I said, “Did you know my insurance will pay something for massages? I’m going to get some.”
Gabe was still reading and he looked up again, confused.
“It’s stress reduction,” I said. “You could get one too.”
“Not me. I don’t think so.”
“It’s quite harmless,” I said. “You would like it.”
“The world is too full of people getting massages,” Gabe said.
“What does that mean?”
“You can go get one. I’m not against it.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I work in a camera store. I’m surrounded by people who want to take pictures of themselves all the time. Anything else in the world is not photo-worthy to more people than you would believe.”
I thought, oh, let him talk about how puffed up people are lately, that’s how an old person talks, when the time to strut is over.
So I strutted in my bathrobe back to the bedroom and put on a clean outfit for dinner, a little sweater and checked toreador pants I hadn’t worn in a while. I felt very sexy and cute after being with Jason. I felt that I was oozing beauty, that I had beauty to spare. I could take on a hundred lovers and they would all find things about me to delight in.
Gabe wanted to finish reading one more Kafka tale before we did anything about dinner. “Read,” I said, quite nicely. In my own version of domestic fervor, I went outside to get luscious and overpriced takeout from the store near us that Gabe called Effete Foods. I got all Gabe’s favorite tidbits—smoked trout, lentil salad, golden beets with sesame oil, mussel and potato salad. And when I laid them out, I said, “Who invented salad? Did people always eat it?”
“Salt,” Gabe said. “It means salted.”
And he got to tell me about the salt road in ancient Rome and the empire’s need to defend it. Also how the Chinese communists had to give up one territory they held in the 1930s because their salt supply was blocked and they were dying of salt hunger. It was the kind of information Gabe was happy in; he pointed with his fork when he talked. I asked questions, I laughed at his jokes, I kept the conversation hopping along. I needed to see him animated and cheerful, and why not? “This is heaven. Did you taste this?” I kept saying. The food did taste fabulous to me. I made him eat multiple helpings of the stuff and I got him to smack his lips over it. “Isn’t this great?” I said. For the first time in our four years together, I felt condescending toward Gabe.
WE WATCHED SOME dumb sitcom on TV and I was giddy that night; I talked back to the set and I made up dirty parodies of the commercials. I did my best to be delightful to Gabe. When he got into bed, I greeted him in a warm and wifely way, and our lovemaking was as decent as any we’d had for a while. I was triumphant that night, because I didn’t have to be grateful.
I BELIEVED I’D had a one-day fling with Jason that was terrific and pleasantly dangerous and over and done with. I had shown a small resurgence of my old taste for adventure and the whole thing (which I clearly felt the better for) had been a fluke event, natural to someone of my, oh, expansive temperament. I could nurse the afterglow as a wicked secret and it was nobody’s business.
Nursing it was what undid me. I went to bed that night thinking of Jason, and the duplicity in this (Gabe was slumbering next to me while I had my steamy little reveries) did not bother me any more than a child has any sort of conscience about eating candy in secret.
I went to work with that sugary feeling, and it kept me company at my desk all day. All morning and all afternoon I did nothing but muse about Jason, and after six, when everyone had left the gallery, I called Jason on the phone, somewhat to his surprise.
That is, he had not been expecting me to call at that moment. I don’t know that Jason was ever surprised by someone wanting him. “It’s me,” I said.
“Melanie?” he said.
“Guess again,” I said. “Can’t keep track of your women, can you?”
Actually I didn’t care so much if he wasn’t mad for me, I just wanted more of him. I felt lucid and ruthless. Why shouldn’t I have at least some of what I wanted? I couldn’t help thinking this.
I did ask how his day had gone, but I cut to the chase pretty fast. “I could come by tomorrow, if you want, on my lunch break,” I said. The Melanies of this world could fend for themselves.
“Sure,” he said. I had not expected him to say no—I wouldn’t have asked otherwise—but right when I heard his little breezy assent, I had the sort of panic that goes with buying something too expensive.
WHEN I WENT to Jason’s the next day and
rang his buzzer, he called out through the intercom, “Is this secret agent 101?” He was slouching in his doorway as I climbed his stairs, and after he held me in an appropriately passionate crush, he asked if I wanted coffee. Everything in the way he handled even those first five minutes showed he thought I would be making a habit of this.
Jason tended to be confident about most things, and I was free—I knew this—not to go where he led. I might have said, “I guess you know this is just for today,” or, “I can’t do this again but let’s make the most of it,” something like the lyric of a jazz standard. He wouldn’t have given me an argument—I could have slipped out of there without any haranguing or bullying or underhanded persuasion on his part.
We got into bed pretty fast. I didn’t have much more than an hour for lunch, and we were ready for each other, heavy-lidded with remembrance of the day before.
It was all very friendly, even with the roughness and the haste. Jason said, “Your underwear is great,” and, “This is the best lunch I’ve had in months.” He was upbeat and casual, and this casualness delighted me greatly. We didn’t have to be solemn, did we? I was proud of us, light and bright as we were in the face of whatever. It made the recent sex with Gabe seem terrified and formal.
Jason and I were not delicate with each other, and I banged my head twice on the wrought-iron bedstead, which was quite funny at the time. “Ga-boing,” I said, and Jason kissed my scalp. Afterward he made me a Swiss cheese sandwich to take back to work.
SO I MADE it a habit. Repeating myself was easy: first one time and then the next time. It was mostly my doing, not Jason’s, I was the one to blame. Jason was still busy on the side with his Melanie person, although she wasn’t any big deal, as far as I could tell. Once or twice he called me at work, but really I was the one who arranged our meetings—at lunch, on evenings when Gabe worked late, on my days off when I said I was at my studio.
My body was different when I was with Jason. There is something to be said for being in the same boat with someone who is touching you everywhere. For the bits of time we were together, I wasn’t weeping for myself. I went back to my old conceited joy in my much-praised body parts. I got queenly again. Once I thought, my blood is happy, one of those blind phrases that float in on waves of other sensations.
This went on for weeks and weeks. I didn’t tell anyone, not Dawn or Fiona or anybody at work, which was quite unusual for me. I had never been secretive before, but my double life felt natural to me. I had a hidden existence anyway, didn’t I, active warfare surging under my skin. I took to sneakiness right away, the planning and finagling, the lies by omission and the outright fibs.
On the other hand, who was the man I loved? Gabe. Gabe first and foremost, Gabe above all others. Gabe forever; where would I ever find another like him? I went through my days and nights with him, as before, and I felt no differently about him. I was glad at the sight of him, I sought his opinion on anything I was thinking about, I woke up thankful for his body next to me in bed, the sound of his voice pleased me when he came through the door.
What did I think I was doing then? I thought I was fooling around, just that. I believed Jason was a harmless hobby, which didn’t have to set off any trouble as long as I kept the facts to myself. I didn’t think Gabe could guess unless I let him guess. There were certain aspects of my days, my painting, for instance, that he had never paid much attention to, and neither of us were snoops.
ONE FRIDAY NIGHT Fiona and Ira had a dinner party. It was a big buffet in their loft. Ira made these blue martinis everyone thought were very hip and Fiona made some kind of unimpressive pasta. I thought, what a tidy little married couple they’re turning out to be, which was sour and unfair of me.
Gabe was amused by the martinis. “They numb your eyeballs,” he said. “I’m not complaining.”
“What would numb eyeballs be like?” Bruce said. “You could only see very bright colors?”
“Oh, please. Some people paint that way,” Dawn said. “You know those blatant kinds of paintings? I hate that.”
“Eric Tomlinson does that,” Ira said. “And younger people. Marsha Blisenski. Jason Alterbitt.”
I didn’t blink at Jason’s name. There were people there who knew him, an overlap between his crowd and this one, and I almost wanted to talk about him. I almost said, oh, you should see his new paintings.
“I think my throat is numb from this stuff,” I said instead. “My larynx has turned blue, I think.”
Gabe said, “I’m going to dream in blue tonight and piss blue in the morning.”
I put my arm around him to show how tickled I was by his eloquence. I was very publicly affectionate that night. I hung on Gabe’s neck when the martinis started to hit me and I slid my hip against his flank. “I think you’re tired,” he said. “Too much gin.”
“Tequila,” Ira said. “That’s the worst the next day.” Ira told a long story about the honeymoon he and Fiona had taken in Cancún. The two of them had hangovers from many happy margaritas and they fell asleep on the beach for hours. They would have died of acute sunburn, really, if Ira’s pesky parents hadn’t phoned that afternoon. Fiona spent the next day covered with ice packs and ointment, and Ira went out and sprained his ankle playing beach volleyball. “We had a great time though,” Fiona said. None of the elements—expensive resort, hovering in-laws, leaping husband—sounded like anything about to happen to me.
“At least you didn’t get pregnant on your honeymoon like Princess Di,” Dawn said. “Poor Diana. She would’ve had a better honeymoon with Dodi, I bet.”
“Priscilla Presley too,” I said. “Lisa Marie was conceived right after the wedding.”
“Ever read what Priscilla said about Elvis on the honeymoon?” Bruce said.
“The man had no secrets,” Ira said.
“I’d love to see the lingerie Di had for her honeymoon,” Dawn said. “Can you imagine?”
“I like my own items,” I said. “Maybe I’ll auction mine off.” I slid the neck of my blouse to one side to show everybody my shrimp-pink camisole. I showed the strap and the fluid hang of the hem-stitched top, and the women said, “Oh, gorgeous,” and Ira said, “Whoo! Have mercy.”
“It’s okay,” I said to Gabe. “I’m not showing any more.”
“Suit yourself,” Gabe said. “It’s up to you.”
I tried, after that, not to ruffle Gabe, but I kept forgetting. I jiggled to the music on the stereo with my bobbing knee next to Ira’s, I told one guy how cute he looked in his haircut, I fed another guy a piece of cake from my fork. I was bursting with enthusiasm for my adorable self. I couldn’t remember whether I always did these things or not.
I got sleepy at the end, and nodded out on Gabe’s shoulder. He woke me up by shaking my arm. “No snoozing here,” he said. “Time to go.”
Gabe didn’t speak at all in the cab on the way home. “What’s the matter?” I said. “What?”
He gave me a sharp look. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”
FIONA WANTED TO know how much dope I had smoked before showing up at her party, and in my repudiation of this notion, I talked about how my moods had just been so wild lately, and I heard myself hinting coyly about my love life, and then I spilled the beans.
Fiona said, “Are you kidding? You’re not kidding?” When she heard Jason was the one, she said, “Elisa,” in a long groan of disappointment. “This is not smart of you.”
“So?” I said. “That’s life.”
“Please don’t talk to me like you’re some idiot,” she said.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said.
“Fuck up your relationship right now of all possible moments in your life? I would call that major.”
“I’m just going to go on with this a little longer. It doesn’t have to have repercussions.”
“You think he won’t find out,” Fiona said, “but people always find out. Sooner or later.”
“I can’t have a little more time? I can’t be allowed that
?”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Fiona said. “It never happens that a woman in your position is fought over by two men. Never.”
I HUNG UP the phone angry with Fiona, who had become, I thought, quite the stodgy matron. But Dawn, who heard the news from Fiona, said, “You’re being greedy and it’ll get you in trouble. That’s all I’m saying.”
How pragmatic they were, my girlfriends. I might have listened, although nobody ever does listen. Every time I was with Jason, he would say to me, as I was leaving, “So call me,” or, “Next Thursday, right?” and I was so pleased to hear him speak this way. I knew I might not hear any of it the next time, and that was really all I worried about, as far as I worried at all.
7
Gabe
We were very busy at the store right when the weather got warmer in May. People remembered then that they were going to be in pleasanter places soon and needed cameras, as one of our ads said, to hold on to the good times. “That’s a futile exercise, holding on to the moment,” I said to my friend Ed.
“I would keep these existential insights to myself if I were you,” Ed said. He thought we should have ads that said, “Throw money away! Buy a camera that’s beyond your comprehension!”
I was just as glad to be occupied with hordes of customers and not to think about my own life. At home Elisa was acting silly and odd. She was too lively, too obliging and brightly sweet. With me. I was insulted.
I thought she might be medically worse and not telling me, holding on to some piece of private bad news. Everything physical about her looked the same, but I didn’t know everything to look for. It wasn’t like her to keep some unhappy piece of information to herself, her way was to utter first and think later. She might want to spare me, although that didn’t feel quite right either.
It was demoralizing to think of being spared. Where could she have gotten the idea that I would turn away from taking up my burden? I had known this woman for four years and lived with her for three. But perhaps she thought I had already turned away. She must have seen the lower fear in me, for myself. Some things can’t be hidden; most things can’t.