“If it itches in the night, tell Daddy to put some more pink lotion on.” Her mother left the bathroom, switching off the light as though Bess were not still in there. She started downstairs. Bess followed sullenly, stepping stiff-legged onto each step and leaning resentfully into space until gravity forced her onto the next.
“He doesn’t do it right,” she called to her mother, who was now in the kitchen. Her mother didn’t answer. Bess reached the bottom step and sat down on it. She fit herself into the corner, her shoulder beneath the railing, her feet side by side on the riser. She called again, louder, “Daddy doesn’t do it right,” and listened for her mother’s answer. Bess could hear her mother’s voice. She was talking on the telephone, the voice rising and falling, the tone private. Bess knew that particular voice. She hated it. Now, if Bess walked into the kitchen, her mother would turn her back. As though the person she was talking to were so important that her conversation could not be interrupted, even by the sight of her daughter. When her mother talked in this voice she laughed in her throat, playing with the twisted cord of the telephone. Sometimes she leaned against the wall, as though she were no longer going to hold herself upright, as though she had given in to something.
“DADDY DOESN’T DO IT RIGHT, I SAID,” Bess shouted, as loud as she could, but the private voice in the kitchen went on. Bess leaned against the wall, hooking her wrists over the railing. Once, when she answered the telephone, “Hello who is it please?” she had heard a man’s voice, friendly, familiar, as if he knew her. “This is a friend of your mother’s,” he said. “May I talk to her?” Hating the voice, Bess had given the phone to her mother, who had smiled and turned her back, playing with the cord.
That night, George, Bess’s father, made dinner. He stood at the stove, his back to the children. He was tall and broad, and his body was slack, as though he were held loosely together by his clothes. He had taken off his jacket when he came home and was cooking in his gray flannels and white shirt, his sleeves rolled up.
“Come and get it,” he said to the children behind him. He began spooning things onto a plate. “Here it is, the World’s Most Honored Meat Loaf.”
“Meat loaf again,” said Bess in a neutral voice. Behind her father’s back she made a wild face at her brother. Sammy was five. He rolled his eyes back energetically, putting his hands at his throat, strangling himself. Bess laughed.
“Come on,” said George, a warning note in his voice. “Children, come on.” He turned and held a plate out to Bess. She did not put her hand out to take it. “Bess, that’s your plate.” He towered, impatient. Bess waited as long as she dared, then raised her hand to take it. The meat loaf sizzled disgustingly in its hot fat. The frozen peas would be still cold in the middle, and the frozen french fries would be mushy.
“Where’s the ketchup?” she asked accusingly, and George turned and looked at her.
“Where would you imagine the ketchup was, Bess?”
Sulkily Bess lowered her eyes. “In the fridge,” she finally said.
“Right,” said her father. “Here.” He handed Sammy his plate and they sat down at the round pine table. The room was small, and the table stood next to the window. The sky outside was dark. When their father cooked, dinner was always late. Bess began to swing her feet under the table; her father and Sammy began to eat. Sammy ran a small metal car back and forth over the tablecloth in a short explosive pattern. Under his breath he made engine noises.
“Don’t,” said George, without interest. Sammy lowered his eyes and continued, more quietly, to roll the car up and down by the side of his plate. George looked at Bess. They had the same high forehead and straight-across eyebrows, though Bess was fairer than her father. Her hair was nearly blond, and her eyes were blue, like her mother’s. Bess sat with her hands under her thighs, swinging her legs under the table.
“Bess?” said George in a warning voice.
Bess slumped heavily against the back of her chair, her spine rounded deeply as though it could never straighten again. She raised her chin and waited as long as she thought was safe. When she heard her father draw in his breath to speak again, she answered.
“What,” she said.
“Is there some reason that you can’t eat your dinner?”
Bess delayed again, then shook her head slowly, her fine hair swinging back and forth, making a neat triangle across each cheek in turn.
“Then would you do it?” said George. He had both hands braced against the edge of the table, as though he were ready to throw the table over. He leaned forward at Bess, unfriendly. Bess didn’t answer. “Would you please do it, Bess?” he said, his voice thin and knify. “Would you eat your dinner?”
Bess dropped her head suddenly, her bangs brushing the meat loaf. She began to sniff, and her shoulders rose, then fell.
“Bess,” said George, “what is it?” His voice was not kind. He put one hand out toward her across the table. Bess sniffed again, her head still down.
“My knee hurts,” she said in a trembling voice. “I have poison ivy on it.” She raised her face now, her mouth drooping and shattered, her eyes wounded. There was a long pause. “Mommy put pink lotion on it,” she said, her voice wavering. “But it still hurts.”
George leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry your knee hurts, Bess,” he said. “You will still have to eat some dinner, however.” He stared at her through his large horn-rimmed glasses. “When did she do that?” Now his voice was different, and Bess retreated.
“Who?” she asked.
“Your mother.”
“Don’t say it like that,” said Bess.
“When did she do it?”
“Before she left,” said Bess. “This afternoon.”
Sammy ran the car up and down beside his plate. He kept his eyes down and made whispering sounds for the car. “Room,” he whispered, “rooom.”
“Before she left,” said George. He folded his arms and leaned back in the Windsor chair, its narrow spindles creaking against his weight. Behind him, on the white stove, pots stood disorderly on the burners. The oven door was still open.
Bess hunched her shoulders and pushed them against the edge of the table. “She said if it itched in the night, you would put the pink lotion on.”
George laughed unhappily. “She did,” he said. Bess stared at him, and he sobered. “She’s right. I will.”
“What if it still hurts, though?” asked Bess.
“Then I’ll put even more lotion on it,” said George severely. “Your mother will be back tomorrow. You can show it to her then.”
Bess swung her legs under the table. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,” she said in an infuriating singsong.
Sammy broke in before George could start. “Bess,” he said in a patronizing voice, “don’t hunch.”
She looked at him, furious. “Sammy,” she said vindictively, “don’t munch. Don’t punch. Don’t sunch. Don’t lunch.” She laughed in a high, annoying manner. George pushed his chair back and stood up. He did not look at the children. He picked up his plate and took it to the sink. He stood with his back to them and scraped off the leftovers into the disposal.
“Not the meat!” Bess said. He did not answer. “Not the meat, Daddy! Mommy gives that to Charleston.” Charleston, the springer spaniel, had come in with the smell of dinner and was standing, polite but interested, in the doorway, his ears alert.
“Daddy,” said Bess, but more cautiously.
George turned around, the rinsed plate in his hand. “What I do and what your mother does are two different things. When your mother is here, she does things her way. When she isn’t, I do them my way.” He stared at Bess. “Do you understand?”
“Okay,” said Bess. “Okay, Daddy. Okay.”
George left the room, and the two children sat on alone. The table now looked abandoned. The thick blue tablecloth still had crumbs on it from breakfast, and there were some dark spots on it. The children’s messy plates lay in front of them, and their half-empt
y milk glasses. No one had told them to put their napkins in their laps. Sammy, his mouth full of meat loaf, put his head down on his arm, stretched out flat on the table. Chewing steadily, he closed one eye and rolled the car up and down. “Rooom,” he said quietly, “rooom.”
George went into the living room. It was long and narrow, with french doors opening out onto a terrace. A big deep sofa stood in front of the fireplace, flanked by overstuffed armchairs. The colors were handsome and comforting: deep reds and browns. When they had first moved here, his wife had created this small world: She had had curtains made; she had covered the furniture and bought rugs. Big swatches of material had hung confusingly in layers over the arms of chairs and sofas, for months, it had seemed, before the final choices were made. His wife had seemed to have an inner vision of what she wanted, something precise, lucid, beautiful. This had seemed a wonder to George, her certainty, her care. He had felt deeply grateful, fortunate to have a wife with such power, such conviction about this place, the core of their life. He had pretended to complain to their friends about the length of time it took, the cost of it all. Really he was using this as an excuse to draw everyone’s attention to her skill, her grace, her love for him. He was respectful and proud.
Eight years later, the fabric on the arms of the chairs was thin and faded; in some places it had worn through entirely. There were subtle stains on the carpet, and Charleston’s white hairs were everywhere, in all the folds and creases. The cleaning lady came twice a week, rolling the vacuum slackly across the carpet, but George felt, looking around the room at the wrinkled rug, the crooked lampshades, the mysterious topographical stains, as though he were on a doomed island, a tiny decaying principality that was slowly sinking, lowering itself into destruction.
He put on the padded earmuffs of his headset and chose a compact disc from his collection. This was large and entirely instrumental, mostly Baroque, but with some early Renaissance. He liked music that was pure, abstract, intricate. George was a lawyer, and he liked sitting down in his chair in the evenings, leaning back, and losing himself. When George put on his headphones, once the music started, he was gone: silent, invisible, passive. He could hear nothing in the old world; he was in another place. He felt that he was part of a mysterious current, this fluid, beautiful sound that swept him along and immersed him.
For the children it was like having an effigy of their powerful father, something they could treat in ways they would never risk in his actual presence. They played games around the deaf, immobile figure, daringly shouting bad words, tiptoeing up behind him and pretending to touch him, to tickle him, to bop him on the head, then falling back, chortling. Sometimes they forgot he could see, and sometimes he startled them. Sometimes he broke unexpectedly into their games, reaching out and grabbing one of them. When this happened to Bess, she screamed with fear and joy: fear at this threat of sudden danger from her father, who was the true source of her safety; joy at being so selected, kidnapped, loved.
Left in the kitchen, the two children now stared at each other. Bess’s plate was untouched, and the World’s Most Honored Meat Loaf had become cold. The liquid had turned into flat orange blobs, opaque, dotting the grainy gray surface.
“Now,” said Sammy, “he’s mad. Because of you.” His head was still down, pillowed on his arm in its striped jersey. His bangs fell sideways on his high forehead. He eyed her, then the small car.
“I don’t care,” said Bess. She picked up her milk glass fastidiously. She swallowed lengthily, each gulp audible. When she stopped drinking she gasped for breath, a white shadow left along the upper rim of her mouth.
“Why does she go away?” Sammy said. One eye was closed; he was focusing on the car at close range.
“She has to. It’s business,” Bess said, officious.
“Business,” said Sammy. The room off the kitchen, with a computer in it and a telephone, was their mother’s office. The children knew the word: “consultant.”
“Daddy goes to business, and he doesn’t go away,” said Sammy.
“She only goes for one night,” said Bess.
“She shouldn’t,” said Sammy.
“She has to,” said Bess firmly.
“Anyway, she went on business before, and it wasn’t like this,” said Sammy with conviction.
Bess said nothing, silenced: this was true. When her mother had first told her about these trips, one night a week, it had been different from the other times. This time her mother had not knelt down in front of Bess to tell her, she had not put her arms around Bess and played with her hair as she talked to her. This time she had told Bess while she was rinsing off dishes in the kitchen, not looking at her, her voice raised over the sound of the running water, loud and remote. And there were other things that were different now: the voice her mother used for those telephone calls. Their father’s temper. And there were shouts, sometimes, and doors slamming, late at night.
Still, their mother left them for only one night at a time. It had happened twice. She left in the afternoon while Mrs. Garcia was still there. Mrs. Garcia stayed until George arrived. The next day, when the children came home from school, their mother was back again. The day of her return she was affectionate, full of energy, her voice high. Dinner that night was fancy. The day she came back, she was triumphant, and George was silent. He did not look at her, even when he spoke to her.
Bess pushed back her chair from the table. She left her plate and the half-empty milk glass. It would still be there, this abandoned meal, when their father made breakfast, but later her mother would be back. When Bess came home from school the kitchen would be clean.
Bess went into the living room. Her father, in his deep faded chair, did not see her. His eyes were unfocused, staring into the air at the wall above the carved Italian chest. He was settled into his chair, the earphones covering his ears. His big hands lay on the torn chair arms. One of his fingers was moving, marking a rhythm that Bess could not hear. She twitched her shoulders in a rude way. George did not see her, and she put her hands on her hips and walked forward until she was directly in his line of vision. He raised his eyes and stared at her, his eyes level with hers, and hostile. Bess arched her back insolently and stared back at him.
Looking at her father, Bess saw how ugly he was, how his hair was thinning along the top of his forehead, how stupid that looked. How mean his mouth was, how his face was full of nastiness. She thought how she hated him.
Her father was no longer looking at her. He was staring straight through her, as though Bess had become invisible. To test him, Bess slowly raised her arms, straight out, as though she were about to fly. Her father looked straight ahead, one forefinger tapping out his rhythm on the arm of the chair. Bess leaned to one side, her arms still out, but her father’s eyes did not shift. He looked in a straight line. Bess opened her mouth, wider and wider. Slowly she stuck out her tongue at her father, leering, twisting her face into a gargoyle of distaste. She focused on him hard, sending him everything she felt, rage and hatred and disgust, for the gray-brown meat loaf, the chilled peas, the abandoned house. Her eyes closed with her efforts, and she leaned forward, delivering her message to her father in ferocious mime. Her whole body was engaged, and she forgot that her father was there. When he spoke, she jumped.
“Do you think I like it?” her father said, shocking the silent room. His voice, raised above sounds only he could hear, was loud and frightening. He was nearly shouting. “Do you think it’s my idea? Don’t you think, if there were anything else I could do, I’d do it?” He had stopped tapping his fingers, and his hands had closed into fists. His mouth was tight at the corners, pinched, as though he were holding himself away from something, as though he were just barely holding himself away from something terrible.
Bess took a step back from him, her heart pounding. Seeing her father like this was frightening, and she did not know what to do now, where to turn. Her knee hurt, and her mother was not there.
Slipping Away
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p; James had begun listening in on my phone calls. I could tell when he did it, of course—you always can. It’s not that you hear a sound but that the silence on the line has altered. It has deepened and expanded. Suddenly, in the middle of your conversation, out beyond your friend’s voice, you hear space. Suddenly you have the whole black universe on the line, and that’s not who you were calling.
The first time it happened, I thought James had just picked up the phone and didn’t know I was already on it. I said, “James?” to let him know. There was no answer.
Then I thought it must be our housekeeper, and I said, “Lita?” But there was still no answer. For a long moment there was that listening distance, and then, soundlessly, the audible space closed in. The line became close and intimate, and it was only my friend and I again. After that, I knew who it had been. And I knew there was no point in asking James to his face. We’ve been married for seven years, and I know that James answers questions only when it suits him. If I asked about this, he would just smile in a private way and shake his head.
But it was getting more and more frequent. It began to seem as though every one of my phone conversations contained one of those black spaces, the sound of the Great Beyond suddenly intruding on the talk. Every time it happened I said, “James?” I was trying to shame him into stopping, but it had no effect.
On Tuesday James and I had breakfast, as always, in the dining room. The big round table in the middle is too big for the two of us, so we sit at a small drop-leaf table, under the window that overlooks the park. We get two copies of the Times delivered, because James doesn’t like to wait if I haven’t finished with the section he wants. We read while we eat, trading comments on the paper.
At eight-thirty Lita brings in a tray. I have coffee and whole-wheat English muffins, and James has coffee and orange juice and scrambled eggs and buttered toast and bacon. I’ve told him all this is bad for him, but James just smiles at things like that. He doesn’t believe them. James believes that he is somehow protected from bad things: cholesterol, heart disease, airplane crashes, hard work. He’s forty-two, and, so far, experience has proved him right. He is still alive, and so are both his parents, so the biggest trust funds are still to come.
Asking for Love Page 3