“Did you want to tell me something?”
He looks away.
Behind my sunglasses, I shut my eyes and savor the darkness for a moment, then open them reluctantly. “Right, Steve, golf. A business meeting with a business associate. On July Fourth. Must be one important client, to lure you away from your wife. Or maybe that’s your idea of Independence Day.”
I’m no longer trying to hide my sarcasm. Even so, he refuses to take the bait. His self-control is as impressive as Vickie’s is.
“Forget I even brought it up,” he says. “Let’s get to work.”
Furious at myself as much as at him, I settle back on the bench and prepare for a new round of wife-coaching.
The next day Vickie answers the door of her apartment holding a pair of blue surgical booties in one hand and balancing a bowl of strawberries against her hip with the other. “These are for you,” she says. I can’t figure out which she means, until I notice she is wearing blue shoe covers over her driving moccasins and that the two workmen in the living room have them on over their heavy boots. “To protect your shoes from the dust,” Vickie explains.
“Maybe we should go someplace else.” It isn’t just an excuse not to wear the booties. Being in Vickie’s apartment, even in the vicinity of her building, is making me jumpy. I could almost feel Steve’s presence in the lobby, even though Vickie insisted when she summoned me here that he was at his company’s Long Island office for the day—she’d even called to check up on him.
In answer, Vickie looks down conspicuously at her midsection. “I’m not really feeling up to it.”
So I take the booties and slip them over my backless shoes, thinking on the one hand that at least I don’t have to go barefoot, but on the other how ironic it would be if, having finally triumphed over my blister problem, thanks to Vickie, I ended up breaking my neck on the way into her living room, also thanks to Vickie.
I slide-stumble toward my usual chair. The living room is now in full renovation chaos, with plastic draped across the walls, drop cloths covering every piece of furniture; on the floor, the plaster dust is Pompeii-worthy.
Vickie coughs, opens the door to a minuscule terrace, and steps outside into a cacophony of roaring engines and wailing sirens from the street below. “This is my last refuge.” She ushers me to one of two wrought-iron café chairs set up at a small matching circular table. We sit, she wearily, as if, despite the supposed improvements in her marriage, she’s still up nights worrying. Her undereye circles are even worse than mine were yesterday, and she has a cluster of pimples on her chin. It’s a first: blue shoe covers and all, I look better than she does.
The table is laid out with cloth napkins, glasses, and a chilled bottle of Perrier. Vickie sets down the bowl of strawberries and slides it closer to me. “I bought them at Eli’s this morning. They’re grown upstate in the Hudson Valley. I know most strawberries come from California, but the local ones are really good. Try.”
I select a strawberry and take a bite. She’s right; it’s delicious.
“If you think those are yummy, wait till blueberry season,” Vickie says.
Between berries, I fill her in on yesterday’s meeting with Steve. The session boiled down to two main points, each so awful in its own way, I don’t know which to start with. Vickie looks at me expectantly. I decide to begin with the second point. “He, um, said women should never, ever ask their husbands, ‘Honey, do I look fat?’”
I’d been thinking this was the less offensive of Steve’s two pieces of advice. As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I wish I could take it back. I look away as Vickie rubs her belly with both hands. “Why would he bring that up now?” She spoons a heap of berries onto her plate. “It’s not like I can help it.”
I’d thought the same thing when Steve brought up the topic yesterday, and had yelled at him for his shocking insensitivity. “She’s pregnant with your child, Steve. Show some respect!” Then, of course, he had looked utterly mortified and hadn’t been able to stop apologizing. At one point he even reiterated that he’d like to end our wife-coaching sessions once and for all, but I browbeat him right out of that idea.
I pour some Perrier into Vickie’s glass. “We could talk about this some other time. You don’t have to follow, or even hear, every last bit of his advice, you know.”
“It’s all right. I can stand it.”
I take an extended drink of my own water. “Okay, he says the problem with the question is that there’s no right answer. If he says yes, you’ll get mad at him, and if he says no . . .”
Vickie scoops out another heap of fruit. “I’ll tell him he’s a liar.”
“Right. He says, better not to ask at all. Even if you were to have put on weight, he may not have noticed, so why bring it to his attention?”
“I’ve never thought of that.”
“Me neither.”
“Though how he could not notice right now is beyond me,” Vickie continues.
“Well, I told him if men were smart, they’d all answer that question the same way: ‘Of course you’re not fat. You’re sexy and beautiful.’”
Vickie smiles sweetly at the strawberry she’s holding, and says to it, “‘Of course you’re not fat, darling, you’re the sexiest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I love you.’” She pops it into her mouth.
I take another berry. “‘And even if you were fat, which you aren’t in the slightest, I would still thank my lucky stars every day that I married you.’”
Vickie grins. “What’s wrong with being fat, anyway?”
“Absolutely nothing.” The truth is, I think I’m too thin at the moment.
“Women are supposed to be round. We need to be, to care for our babies.”
“Right again. Still,” I continue, “if you must ask the question, I suppose it’s better to ask a girlfriend.”
Vickie laughs conspiratorially and helps herself to more. “I’ll spare you having to answer that one.”
TWENTY
In the end, I do tell Vickie Steve’s other pointer, which is that to accuse one’s spouse continually of infidelity creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. In Steve’s view, the accused grows resentful and figures, You already think I’m guilty; I might as well go ahead and do it. The accuser is then saddled with the permanent task of policing the accused’s every move. “A terrible way to live,” Steve told me, “no matter which side you’re on.”
Vickie props a foot across her knee and repositions her blue bootie. “That makes a lot of sense, actually. You know, I’m still starving. Do you want anything else to eat?”
She excuses herself and goes back through the terrace door toward the kitchen. I watch her tiptoe through the plaster dust.
She returns to the terrace with a barbecued chicken in a plastic deli container. “He’s right. I should stop assuming he’s guilty. You keep saying yourself he’s done nothing wrong.” She tears off a drumstick.
Tell her, my little voice scolds. Tell her you have your own suspicions about her husband. Go ahead. I fidget in my café chair; the iron back is digging into one of my vertebrae. “Perhaps you shouldn’t follow his advice to the letter.”
“Why not? Our marriage is going great. This year’s trip to Southampton might even turn out to be a second honeymoon.”
“I don’t think so!” I am shocked at how harsh I sound. Vickie notices, too, because her smile fades. Then, incredibly, my moderator persona takes over. “Vickie, I apologize for interrupting,” Moderator me begins calmly. “I’m wondering, do you know anyone named Jessica?”
Vickie has just bitten off a huge chunk of chicken leg. She screens her mouth with her hand. “Jessica?” She swallows slowly. A faraway look comes into her eyes. What a relief—she’s getting the message.
No, she’s only thinking. “When my mother’s tennis elbow gets really bad, she sees a physical therapist named Jessica.” She shifts in her chair. “Or maybe it’s Jana. No, Jana is the receptionist at the country club. What is the na
me of that physical therapist?”
Never mind, I tell her.
“Oh!” Vickie says. “There’s a girl in this building named Jessica.”
Goose bumps on my arms. Dry mouth. Momentary vocal paralysis. I watch with detachment as a pigeon flies in for a landing not six inches away on the ledge of Vickie’s teeny terrace, fixes me with its beady red eyes, and flies off. Wouldn’t it be awful if Steve’s mistress has been right here in Vickie’s building this entire time?
“Have you ever”—I cough delicately—“seen her with Steve?”
I hold my breath.
Vickie stares at me.
Then she bursts out laughing.
“Oh, my God! A girl named Jessica. A child! I was chatting with her mom in the elevator the other day!” Vickie’s eyes are teary-wet in the same way I’ve now seen a hundred times, except these are tears of mirth. “Take it from a fat, suspicious wife: She’s no threat. Oh, Iris,” she giggles, “you’ve been doing this too long.”
I’ve definitely been doing this too long. My idealistic plan to save Vickie and Steve seems to be backfiring badly. There are too many feelings I can’t explain: pangs of jealousy when Steve explains how Vickie can improve their marriage and when Vickie talks glowingly of Steve’s latest kindnesses. Divided loyalty toward both of them, at different times. And the better I get to know Vickie, the worse I feel about deceiving her. For someone who abhors cheaters, I am feeling more and more like one myself.
By the time Thursday rolls around, I’m thinking it couldn’t have come at a better time. Sandy Christmas is going to treat me to lunch and then offer me a job. She virtually told me as much when I called to reconfirm this morning. “I’m so looking forward to catching up with you! I think you’re very talented!” Her enthusiasm was heartening.
I splurge on a cab over to Undine’s because it simply wouldn’t do to perspire in my new shirtless pantsuit and adroitly applied (by me!) eye makeup. On the way I imagine the possibilities: Sandy offers me an apprenticeship, which I parlay into a full partnership in the Christmas Company in eighteen months, and my own shingle in two years. At that point, I could work from anywhere—even move back to Los Angeles. Perhaps somewhere other than the San Fernando Valley. I’ve always liked Laurel Canyon: those rustic, tree-shaded houses tucked up against the Hollywood Hills. In enough time maybe I could afford one and stock it with books and clothes. The cab driver pulls over exactly seven doors past the spot where I’ve asked him to, and I accept my receipt and climb out, taking care not to step in a puddle of brackish water at the curb.
Undine’s is appealingly decorated with mismatched chandeliers and table settings of odd pieces of old hotel china. “Christmas party? You’re the first one here.” The hostess leads me to an empty table for two. I sit and continue fantasizing: After Sandy hires me, the very first thing I’ll do is pay off Steve’s loan, in full, with interest. Five minutes go by in a snap, then five minutes more. I embroider fine details onto my fantasy: I’ll replenish my savings and start investing again in my retirement account and, to satisfy that long-ago career columnist from Cosmopolitan, put away two months’ salary in case a time like this ever happens again. Which it won’t, because I am going to be a great moderator.
Another five minutes pass. The hostess seats two businesswomen, each ignoring the other and carrying on her own cell phone conversation, a few tables away. I check my cell for a missed call from Sandy saying she’s running late. There isn’t one. I set the phone on the table in case it rings.
I flag down the hostess. “Has the other member of my party maybe arrived, but you forgot me?” She promises I’ll be the first to know when Sandy shows up.
A waiter comes by praising the gnocchi appetizer. I order it, hoping Sandy won’t be offended. By now it’s twenty-five minutes past the time we were supposed to meet, and I’m worried about fainting from hunger during the interview.
At thirty-five minutes, the appetizer comes out. I spoon a few gnocchi onto my plate, leaving plenty for Sandy. I know she loves pasta. And Ilona said to save room for dessert.
By forty-five minutes, I’ve eaten most of the appetizer and duck into the ladies’ room to refresh my lipstick. I stand near the sink and call Sandy’s office. Her assistant says she’s on her way to a meeting. I rush back to the table, sure she’ll be there.
She’s not.
After an hour, I pay the check and take the subway home. My answering-machine light is on.
“Iris, it’s me, Sandy! Listen, I can’t make lunch! It’s crazy busy around here! Call me soon to reschedule! Does fall work for you?”
Conveniently, Simon is home to listen to me rage. I find him cross-legged on the floor in front of his glass-topped Noguchi coffee table, digging through a grocery bag. The mingled scents of men’s cologne and peaches permeate the room. “Half my unemployment check, wasted on a stupid appetizer,” I tell him.
“Don’t you get it, kitten? It’s not meant to be.” He pulls a peach out of the bag and carefully peels off the price sticker, then sets the peach on a square green ceramic platter the size of my bathroom floor.
“What’s not meant to be? My ever being gainfully employed again for as long as I live?”
“Don’t be a drama queen.” He pats the empty space next to him on the rug. Rocky appears from behind the half-closed bedroom door and charges over to Simon. “I’m not calling you, Mister Piggy,” Simon says in a baby voice. “That was for Iris. You think you’re going to get some peach, but you’re not, are you, you google-eyed food machine? You drooly little glutton.” He holds Rocky back with a slippered foot. “You’re still taking care of him while I’m on Fire Island, Iris, right? Good. Okay, sit, please, and help me with these stickers.”
I take a peach.
“Careful, careful!” Simon directs. “No manhandling!” For a few minutes we peel stickers in companionable silence. Then Simon looks up. “‘Not meant to be,’ as in working for this Candy Christmas person. What kind of parents would name a child Candy Christmas? I hope at the same time they wrote the poor girl a check to cover twenty years of psychotherapy.”
“Sandy Christmas. She made up the name herself. It’s called self-branding.”
“Then she’s even dumber than I thought. Candy Christmas is much cuter. Don’t you think?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Then it’s settled. No working for that one. On to more important topics. How does this look?” He slowly, and with great effort, rotates the platter.
I probably shouldn’t tell him I’ve already left a message for Sandy Christmas that I’m available to reschedule whenever she wishes.
“You must really love peaches.” There must be two dozen, stacked artfully in a casual pyramid shape. Several have leaves attached, a straight-from-the-farm effect not easy to achieve with produce from the corner Gristede’s. Knowing Simon, he went through three hundred individual peaches, looking for leaves. “How many can you possibly eat?”
He sets the platter in the precise center of the coffee table, turns a few peaches to the right or left, takes one off the top, and sets it on the table just so, as if it had rolled off and landed there. He stands to admire the effect. “They’re not to eat, kitten; they’re to look pretty.”
I keep Simon’s concept in mind while I’m dressing for my Saturday-night date with BuzzBuzz: Look but don’t touch. It has me in a wardrobe quandary. The skirt and blouse look too uptown for a downtown gallery opening; the dress is far too sexy for someone I’ve never met. Val should never have insisted I do this. I don’t even want to go anymore, if I ever really did.
I start to pull on the pants from my pantsuit and discover something else to be mad at Sandy Christmas about: a dollop of Undine’s olive oil on the waistband. I set the pants on the edge of my armchair and retrieve the rest of my dirty dry cleaning off the closet floor, where it’s been sitting for weeks, to bring in along with the pants first thing Monday morning. Sorting through the pile, I wonder if, instead of paying to clean al
l these sad skirts and tops, I really should toss them onto the sidewalk trash heap as Simon suggested.
But this—it just might work for a gallery opening.
I untangle my navy linen shift from the rest of the cleaning. The dress is wrinkled beyond recognition and smells faintly of mildew, but perhaps no one will notice after I steam it out in the shower and give it two dozen or so spritzes of the only fragrance I own: a focus group leftover called Convivial. Ten minutes later, when I pull on the dress, I reek like a perfume factory and look as if I’d just come from a nice eight-hour nap on a park bench. I take the dress back off and slip into the blouse and skirt. Before I walk out the door, I stash fifty dollars and Simon’s special lipstick blend in my bag. Then I go to the corner to catch a cab.
The Meatpacking District is yet another of Manhattan’s formerly sordid areas that has transmuted into a fashionable neighborhood. The buildings are low and old, the streets are cobblestone, and the effect is of stepping back into old New York—except with bazillion-dollar bankers’ apartments. I walk down Little West Twelfth Street to the spot where the gallery should be, and find a windowless brick structure with an unmarked, graffiti-plastered door. My stomach butterflies slam their wings together apprehensively. It’s eleven thirty at night. What kind of man makes a date at eleven thirty? What am I doing here? Me, Iris, who thought Steve might chop me up into little pieces and feed me to the ducks.
The butterflies start fluttering again, this time at the thought of Vickie’s husband, and as I’m hating myself I understand that Val, in her own way, is right. It is time to get on with my life, to get Teddy and Kevin and, most of all, Steve out of my head. I have to do this and trust it will turn out okay. Who knows? Maybe I’m too big a cynic; perhaps we do get more than one chance at love.
An artistic-looking couple walks up. The man opens the red metal door, and the two disappear into the building. That settles it. After a final whispered appeal to the dating gods—please, let this be not so terrible—I step through the door and climb a clanky metal staircase toward the sound of voices.
It's About Your Husband Page 20