by Jane Smiley
“I admit it’s rather hard to take in.” She raised a bite of veal to her lips, paused to inhale the aroma, then put it on her tongue. Lemon, pepper, parsley, the tender, milky flesh, a velvety sauce mysteriously seasoned. Susan said, “You act as if things haven’t changed, as if nothing has taken place. Where do you think Denny and Craig are? How do you think they got there? Our group of friends isn’t just going to roll supportively along, patting and kissing and eating together.”
“All kinds of people had those keys! Honey seems to think—Well, you can’t tell me that Ray or Noah or Rya—”
“That’s what Denny always wanted, too. Lots of patting and kissing and holding hands. Nestled in the bosom of the family. Craig on one side, me on the other, everybody embracing.”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
“What do you know?”
“I know that I can’t stand this. I think I’d better leave, too.”
“I bet you think I don’t cry enough. I bet you think I’m wonderfully brave. That’s what Denny’s mother said I was. My mother, too. Those exact words. Did I want her to come and I was wonderfully brave. I bet you think that after all these years together, I’m not reacting to Denny’s death quite right, that I’m a real bitch to recognize that my apartment’s a good deal even after this.”
“In New York, any apartment—”
“I bet you think there’s something wrong with me, you can’t quite put your finger on it. I’m doing all the proper things, but, well, you don’t want to say it. Even think it. You’re a very loyal person. I bet you’re remembering how you could hardly walk or talk after Jim left you, couldn’t even write your name. Remember how you called me on the phone the night you got the letter, and you said that you were trying to write back, but your hand didn’t work, and the pen wouldn’t work, and you couldn’t write his name or your own, or even simple words like ‘is’ and ‘chair’?”
“I haven’t thought anything about it.”
“You know what my mother did when my father died? She bought a new living-room suite! You better believe that shocked the neighbors. It even shocked me. The day after the funeral she went out and got a sectional sofa, a glass-topped table made of a redwood burl, a La-Z-Boy Chair, new drapes, and a music center.” It shocked Alice, too, although she didn’t want it to. “Then she hired a trash hauler and took all the old stuff, my father’s chair and his record player and everything down to the Salvation Army and dropped it off.”
“Maybe that was the only way she had to be desperate.”
“Maybe.”
“Let’s go.”
“I haven’t had dessert. I want crêpes Suzette.”
“Let’s have something on the way.”
“I want crêpes Suzette!”
“Okay, sweetie.” Suddenly what Alice wanted was to put her head down on the beige tablecloth, or to lie down on the toast-colored banquette. How was she going to deal with this? The restaurant was very warm. She felt trapped and terrified of leaving at the same time. She could hardly hold her head upright. Weakly, she said, “Why did you send our friends away?”
“We don’t know anything about friends,” said Susan, beckoning the waiter.
5
SUSAN wanted to sleep in her own apartment that night, and Alice did not try to dissuade her. They parted at West End, exchanging tentative and promissory kisses on the cheek. The late dusk was still pale and shot with rose. Alice tried to take solace in it as she walked uptown, to smile at passers-by who smiled at her, to mention the weather to the occasional doorman who mentioned the weather to her. What she yearned to do upon reaching her place was to call Jim Ellis and to cry and cry and cry, to beg for his help, to plead that he leave Mariana, to insist on a return to three years before. Even while rolling these desires through her mind, she recognized them as her habitual response to trouble. Of all the things his departure had done to her, wasn’t that one of the worst? Opening her door, setting down her bag, taking off her jacket, she let herself plan out what she could say, what her tone could be (easy but serious), how much need she could show (fatigue, strained loyalty). She unplugged the kitchen telephone resolutely, but then not so resolutely went into her spare room and found her copies of his poems, both old and new, in his hand and Xeroxed from journals in the library. This was one of her most craven habits, that made her feel worse, not better. She turned on the light as the dusk thickened and opened the folder. “Chinese Chestnuts” lay on the top, about a year old. In it he likened his love for Mariana to one of those spiked chestnut cases, the very thought of which made Alice’s palms prickle as she read. It was of course with her, in Doreen and Hugh’s fruitful backyard, that Jim had first gathered chestnuts and pricked himself on the hulls. He probably didn’t gather chestnuts in California, having never cared for agricultural endeavor. By the end of the poem—“the satiny sweet lodged within—” the phone rang. Thinking at once that it might be Susan, a different, sober Susan, who did not suspect their friends, Alice went into the bedroom and picked it up. It was Henry Mullet.
“What are you doing?” he said.
Annoyed, Alice replied, “Reading poems my ex-husband wrote to his second wife.”
“Sounds self-destructive. How about a movie instead?”
“Not tonight.”
“What are you going to start on after the poems, old letters?”
“I thought of it.”
“I think you’d better put on your sweater, put your keys in your pocket, and meet me on the sidewalk.”
“Not tonight.”
“It’s a beautiful evening.”
“That’s not so rare any more. Look, I feel really bad. I’ve got a headache—”
“Am I being too forward?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had a bad day. I’ve had too much to eat and drink and think about already this evening.”
“So who’s going to eat or drink or think. Hang up the phone, take your keys, come downstairs. You’ll be back with your ex-husband and his wife by nine-thirty.”
“Please, I—All right.”
When she got down to the street he was waiting for her. Without speaking, he put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. Once again he smelled wonderful, this time of laundry detergent and clean warm skin. After a few seconds, she reached around him and returned the pressure. When he seemed about to release her, she broke away and said, “Yes, that was very forward. What now?”
“I’d still like to go to the movies.”
“It’s too late for me.”
“Work, etcetera?”
“You bet.”
“But what will you do if you go back in there? You won’t go to bed.”
“Probably not.” The apartment did seem an arid cell when she thought about it. “Let’s walk around the block,” she said, “and smell those trees on Riverside.”
“The silverbells.”
“Is that what they are?”
“Carolina silverbells, Halesia Carolina and so forth.”
“That’s right, you’re a botanist.”
“And you are a librarian.”
“Not your glamor careers.”
“Definitely on the side of preservation rather than creation.”
“Do you consider yourself dull?” she eyed him.
“No, do you?”
“Not yet. I wonder, though.”
“I spent three years in Taiwan and six months in Japan.”
“Maybe I have a monopoly on dullness, then.”
“That’s when I thought I was getting dull, actually. Abroad is duller than home in a lot of ways, even a place like Japan, which is often perfect, especially for a botanist. I couldn’t wait to move to Manhattan. Champagne and satin, you know.”
“I’ve heard. I usually think in terms of Rheingold and wool.”
“Twenty-One? Elaine’s? Zabar’s? Lutèce?”
“You know Elaine, too? She’s only been at the reference desk for about a month.”
“I’d stand i
n line for her.”
“In line?”
“Wisconsin.”
“Minnesota. That’s why you hugged me rather than mugged me, I suppose.”
“Maybe.” After a moment, he said, “How long since this presumed husband?”
“Presumptuous is more the word. Two years.”
“And you’re still reading his poems?”
“He’s still writing them. Actually, they’re beginning to get good.” She thought of telling him about the one in The New Yorker over the winter, but didn’t. Henry said, “Two years ago I had just gotten to Japan from Taiwan. I thought it would never end.”
“Two years ago I thought it would never end, either. Did you come back any while you were away?”
“Not once.”
“Amazing.”
“I thought so, too. Do you want to go around again?”
Alice took a deep breath of the refreshing air. “Yes. I forgot to smell the trees.”
“This time we won’t talk. We’ll just smell, like dogs.” Halfway around he bumped her and then took her arm above the elbow. When they got back to her doorway, he said, “Did you smell anything good?”
“Lots of things. I couldn’t distinguish the odors, though. Surprisingly few bad things, even this close to the river. I think it’s always strange how good mere inhalation makes you feel.”
“Would you go inhale with me out in Brooklyn on Saturday?”
“What time?”
Not until she had turned to go did he relinquish her elbow.
IN THE morning, when they were dropping off the boxes at UPS, Alice wondered why, although she had been with Susan for nearly an hour, and on fairly good terms, she hadn’t mentioned, or even thought to mention, her walk with Henry Mullet. A botanist would interest Susan. If she met Henry, Susan would have something intelligent to say to him. She wouldn’t have to ask questions simply to dredge up something to talk about. Oriental plants or Japanese gardening would be something she had read about not too long ago. Still, just as she could not bring herself to tell her parents about Denny and Craig, she could not bring herself to tell Susan about Henry Mullet. The boxes, neatly addressed, rolled down a conveyor belt out of sight and Susan heaved a large sigh. “Want to eat?”
“All of this does make me famished all the time, but I’d better get to work.”
“Shall I drive you before I put the car away again?”
“You don’t want to go to midtown. It would probably gridlock.”
“Then I could abandon the car for good.”
“I wonder if you’d have to. If the whole island of Manhattan would be a pedestrian mall forever after that.”
Susan was smiling. With a start, Alice realized that days had passed since their last smiles. Warmth, banked since the night before, kindled again, as always. “Dinner?” she said.
“I may just be able to afford two cartons of yogurt if you’ll bring the bananas.”
“Your place?”
“Why not?”
Smiling as broadly as she could, Alice said, “About six, then. Bananas. I’ll stop at the Fairway.” She got out at the bus stop and Susan rolled away. On the trip downtown Alice put her purse between her feet, stepping firmly on the strap, and used her hands to count up her friends. With Laura, Sidney, and Howard, to whose homes she had never been, and Janet O’Connor, who had so many children, in Minneapolis, that she never had time to write, Alice still could not fill up two hands. Denny and Craig, of course, could hardly be so soon replaced, and it was hard to tell if Jim Ellis should be called a friend or not. There was no one else, no lover from the years since Jim that she could even telephone. The fewness of them shocked her, and what shocked her even more was that until now they had seemed plenteous, a wealth of friends. Of course, she had spent her whole childhood with her parents, not understanding the occasional sympathetic query, “Wouldn’t you like to have brothers and sisters?” To share Doreen and Hugh? Wasn’t seven at the table, plus friends, for holidays, an enormous number? Riding downtown on the Fifth Avenue bus, Alice felt for the first time in her life depopulated. She tried to think that Susan’s suspicions of their friends didn’t have to influence her, but posing the unanswerable question, to whom would she go if she had to, she saw that already the influence was felt. Her brief, nearly involuntary mental images of Noah killing Craig out of a jealous passion (and Denny because he entered the apartment at the wrong moment?) and of Ray lending out his key to thugs and of Rya teasing Noah with the rivalry of his best friend distanced her absolutely from them no matter how she regretted it. Of course, there was Susan. Alice smiled at the richness of the friendship: its length, its intimacy, its comfort, at her own deftness in handling Susan’s porcupine periods and at Susan’s skill with her jellyfish periods. There would always be Susan, but still—She jumped off at the library. She rarely came in this late, and when she looked up toward the grand sunlit facade with its rising pigeons and tranquil lions, she thought it beautiful. Susan’s phrase, “A mighty fortress is our library,” recurred to her. Just then it did seem that a dozen acquaintances and one beautiful building might indeed equal a friend.
Nevertheless, when she got inside she was not disappointed that the day’s assignment, to bring the card catalogue in line with losses in preparation for the programming of all materials that was to begin over the summer, paired her with Laura, whom Alice especially liked, perhaps because at thirty Laura was nearly all gray, as Alice’s mother had been as early as Alice could remember. And Laura was a gossip. Her flow of anecdote about her family, her friends, their co-workers, and anyone else who crossed her mind reminded Alice over and over of all the friends there were to be made. Laura’s gossip was redeemed by its lack of spite. She was warmly objective about every event, taking endless delight in action and complexity, as if she had been bed-ridden in a small windowless room for years and was just now discovering the dramatic possibilities of daily life. She sang Alice through the day.
On the bus up Sixth Avenue it seemed to Alice that she had caught her life in its downward plunge, that she held it, although with difficulty, and that with only a little luck she could turn it. What did the lives of her four ancient grandparents prove if not that life itself would go on? Wouldn’t such a crisis as this one appear almost invisible from the perspective of sixty years on? An anecdote like one of Laura’s that she could hardly remember.
On Thursday Roger Jenks sat down with them. Alice barely knew Roger, but he had a strange fame among the librarians, and although he was a nice man, his sitting next to them seemed ill-omened. It was Roger who, the year before, had wrestled a distraught attacker to the floor of the main reading room and held him pinned in a pool of the victim’s blood until the guards and a policeman could get there. Perhaps it was just a minute, but afterward Roger had looked like a walking corpse. None of the library staff ever talked about the incident, and both the victim, stabbed from behind in the neck and shoulder while reading a German grammar, and the attacker had never been heard of again. It was thought the victim had survived. Laura, who knew Roger fairly well, said, “Hey, you two have something in common! Guess what it is.”
Alice didn’t dare. What could it be besides gore? Fixing a smile on her face, she did her best to look intrigued. She had not known Laura knew about her.
“If you’re referring to the L-Two trap,” said Roger, “we have that in common with everyone here.”
“Nope!” said Laura.
“Shoe size?” Roger picked up his feet and looked at the soles of his oxfords. They were at least size fourteen. Alice laughed.
“No. Aren’t you from Minnesota somewhere, Roger?”
“Bemidji.”
“That’s not much in common,” exclaimed Alice.
“Thanks,” said Roger. “You sound relieved.”
“I didn’t mean to. Where did you go to school?”
“Iowa.”
“Oh.”
Roger put his elbows on the table and looked at her. “But maybe
we have more in common than that.”
Just then Sidney appeared with the news that Alice had a phone call. Alice got up reluctantly. It was Ray. “Can you come over to Studio Midtown on your lunch hour?” he demanded.
“Half hour. I don’t know. Let me think.”
“You’ve got to.”
Alice was annoyed by his tone. “You come here.”
“I can’t. I’m watching the board for someone. She considers herself a big star. If she were, she’d probably be more easy-going.”
“Ray, I’ve had too much time off this week. Let me come after work.”
“I need you before that.”
“What for?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here. I’m in room—”
Alice had a sudden vision of Laura, Sidney, Howard, and now Roger sitting cozily at lunch. Friendly. Funny. Not guilty for sure. “Don’t assume I’m coming!” she barked. “I have a job, too. That’s an hour and a half or two hours with traffic.”
“A half hour each way, tops, and I just have to talk to you for a minute.”
“You want me to walk up there, or pay for a cab, just to talk to me for a minute? I’ve got work to do!”
“It’s important!”
“Then you come here. If you can’t make it, then I’ll meet you there at about five-thirty, all right?” Annoyed by his imperious attitude, she couldn’t help sounding sharp.
“I wish you understood.”
“I’ll be there before you know it. You said you’re stuck there. I’ll come right after work.” After hanging up, she realized that he hadn’t mentioned the room number after all, or the name of the “star.” But the studio would know Ray. Everyone did.
Except the boy in the booth, who was not only gigantically mellow, but new on the job as well. And he didn’t know how not to answer the phone while he was talking to her, and in the middle of the third phone call, when he was running his finger down the schedules looking for an empty room, he knocked everything off his desk, including his cup of coffee. Still, she found out from asking passers-by that he was the only person who even might know something. Everyone else had gone on a delivery or out to dinner. Alice looked at her watch. It was nearly six. Her trip from the library had been a chain of time-consuming mistakes—getting into a cab that got stuck in traffic, getting out of it just before the jam eased, bumping into people, turning down wrong streets. The boy got off the phone again, looked at the mess on the floor, and said, “Oh, shit. Shee-it.”