Betta? You’re not standing there and listening to this, are you? Like, in horror? Betta? Oh, Jesus, delete, delete, delete. I just have never learned certain social graces, okay? I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I’m sorry.
Good God, how long does your machine let people talk? Okay, I’m going. Call me. Or I’ll call you. Though you can rest assured that if you’re not there, I—
At last, the beep cut her off.
Lorraine was right—she didn’t have many social graces. Her policy was to act first, think later—if at all. But such carelessness, such selfishness, seemed to be license of the glamorous. The really good-looking people I knew all capitalized on and benefited from their genetics in one way or another. In their defense, I believed some of this was forced on them by people eager to ingratiate themselves with such superior specimens. Still, there was something about Lorraine that made most people like her. I myself had responded immediately to her honesty and directness. I called her number and got her machine. “Hello,” I said. “I’m calling from Acme Charm School to tell you we’re running a special in your neighborhood. Call back for details.”
I showered, looked in the yellow pages for a paint store, then called for directions. “I’m new here,” I said, by way of explanation, and the man who answered said, “Well, welcome,” so warmly it brought tears to my eyes. When I opened the door to go out again, there was a package on the porch. The return address showed it was from Maddy, and I brought it to the kitchen table and opened it eagerly. On top was a letter.
Dear Betta,
Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry about your husband. I wish I’d known him, but I know you—I do feel like I still know you—and so he must have been wonderful. I’m sure you’ve been through hell and aren’t finished yet with the particular and very personal sorrow you must endure. But I want you to know I’m thrilled that we have connected again. I can’t wait to see you, but Lorraine told me you need time, and I’m happy to give you that. You take all the time you need. Do everything good and bad you feel like doing. But I wanted to at least write to you and to send you a few things. These are just for fun. And for love. Call me if you want. Otherwise, I’ll wait for our grand reunion.
I wonder what you look like. I’m so fat now. But I stopped caring about three months ago—it’s so nice to step up to a bakery case and not immediately self-flagellate. Call me anytime. Come visit anytime. I’ll send you a ticket, I’ll come to you, I’ll do anything you want. We all will.
I look upon this as the most profound of gifts, that we have found you again. Maybe Lorraine told you, but we have come to depend on each other even more than we used to. Welcome back to our little constellation. We’ve always saved a place for you.
Love,
Maddy
P.S. Susanna is fat, too. Only Lorraine isn’t. And maybe you, are you still skinny? Remember when we lay out on the roof of our house in our underwear and our stomachs were all FLAT? I can’t really remember. I think I made it up.
XXXXXXOOOOOO
There were four wrapped packages beneath the letter. I picked up the first one, the smallest, and opened it. It was a bar of wonderfully scented soap, cushioned on a thick white washcloth. The second was silk long johns. The third was a tin of toffee, the smell of which nearly lifted me right out of my chair. And the fourth, a large package, held a thirties-style dressing gown, a beautiful apricot color, with ostrich feathers at the ends of the sleeves. I smiled at it, thinking it lacked only cha-cha shoes. And then, when I lifted the gown out of the box, there they were. Little backless heels, dyed to match. If I ever opened What a Woman Wants, Maddy could be in charge of the whimsey department.
I reread the letter, sat back in the chair, took another long drink of coffee. And noticed a specific and breathtaking absence. At the moment, nothing hurt. What I felt was only hope, that internal sunrise. The image of John’s face came into my head, and I felt only my great luck at having had him for as long as I did. I’d learned enough about grieving to know that other ways of feeling would come back soon enough. But it seemed to me that this was the way we all lived: full to the brim with gratitude and joy one day, wrecked on the rocks the next. Finding the balance between the two was the art and the salvation.
On the way to get paint, I drove to the empty storefront. I’d lost the number, and I had promised myself that today I really would call it. I’d make an appointment and take a good look at the place. But the store was no longer for rent. The sign was down, and brown paper had been put up so that you couldn’t see in. I sat idling for a long time, trying to put things into perspective. Because although this was only a space that I had been interested in and could no longer rent, what it felt like was another death. I tried to remind myself of my great fortune at not having to work at all. At being able to take plenty of time before I decided on anything definite. But I did not feel fortunate. I felt bitter. And I felt foolish for not following through on an impulse I’d known full well was a good one.
I arrived home in the late afternoon, walked in the door to a ringing phone, and dropped my packages to answer. It was a man, saying, “Oh, hi! Ms. Nolan, this is Tom Bartlett. I’m just trying you back. I called the other day; I don’t know if you got the message.”
“I did,” I said. “I just . . . I haven’t gotten a chance to call you back yet.” I looked with sudden longing at all the things I needed to put away. And I wanted to cook something to have ready for Matthew to take home so that those boys would have something to eat in the house. “Actually, this isn’t the best time, either.”
“Okay. I’m sorry to disturb you. Thanks anyway.”
His voice was so kind I felt ashamed of myself. “Well, wait,” I said. “I have a few minutes. Maybe we can just . . . you wanted to talk to someone about writing, is that it?”
“In all candor, I called in the heat of the moment. I heard you on the radio and thought, Well, why not? I’ve always been interested in writing, but I’ve never tried it. But now that I’m retired, I’m going to take the plunge. I thought if I could just take a few moments of your time, I’d get some idea of how to get started.”
“Well, there are many books on the subject,” I said.
“Are there?”
A true innocent! I’d expected him to say the usual: “Yes, and I’ve read a lot, but there are just some things I’d like to talk to you about.”
How bad could it be? A grandfatherly type, trying to finally scratch an itch. An image came to me: blue eyes, thick white hair, a cardigan sweater with leather buttons. I could talk to him. I could tell him about the value of writing for oneself, or of passing on his life story to his grandchildren, if nothing else. “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “How about if we meet at Cuppa Java, on Main Street?”
“That would be wonderful. What time would be good for you?”
“Sunday? About eleven?”
“Perfect. And shall I bring . . . well, how much will this cost?”
I laughed. “Nothing.”
“Oh. Well, thanks very much. I’ll look forward to seeing you. I’m tall, and . . . I’ll wear a red sweater.”
“I will too,” I said, smiling. The old cutie. I always liked being around old guys. Their chivalry. Old Spice cologne. Their suspenders and tie shoes. The way their experience showed and the way their opinions seemed well considered. The way their hands still seemed so strong. I hung up the phone and started putting the groceries away. Next I’d make Jovani and Matthew a spinach lasagna. And a chocolate cake that would make them both my slaves. Buttermilk and good coffee in the batter, cream cheese frosting, strawberry fans for the top.
After Matthew dropped me off from our dinner, I came into the front entry and hung up my coat, then walked over to the sofa and sat numbly staring straight ahead. I felt terrible. Some of it was because of Matthew’s sweetness, his vulnerability, and the way he continued to endure abuse from Melanie. She’d called on our way to the restaurant, and he’d agreed to build her some bookcases in her new place
right after she told him all about her new boyfriend. He’d asked if he could delay painting my bedroom for a while.
“Of course,” I’d said, “but are you sure you want to do this?” He’d stared straight ahead, then nodded. “Yeah. She can be rough. But I want to do this for her because I want to see her again. I guess it’s dumb, but I . . .” He’d sighed. “I still love her. It sucks. I think about her all the time. I can’t get interested in anyone else. She’s not all bad—I mean, I know I made some mistakes. I’d really like another chance. I guess I could make some changes or something. I could make some changes.”
But mostly my sorrow was for myself. For one thing, I’d felt so odd sitting across a restaurant table from a man who was not my husband. I kept seeing the way John used to put on his half-glasses to study the menu, the elegant and discreet way he signaled for the check, the way he helped me on and off with my coat, the steadiness of his affection. In our house, he loved me. At a restaurant, he loved me. While I slept, while I worked, even when we argued, he loved me. It was a second heartbeat, as vital in its own way as the first. Now there was only a sticky Formica table and a young man across from me in harsh light bobbing his knee and asking who was Huey Newton after I happened to mention him. (And then, after I’d answered, who were the Black Panthers?)
For the first time, I’d felt old. It hadn’t been only because of Matthew’s Save the Tiger questions; it hadn’t been the way that, in the presence of the other young couples there, the fact that I could be his mother was accentuated. It wasn’t the background music that Matthew hummed along with that I’d never heard. It was that tonight I’d felt the sudden collapse of a kind of internal support wall that heretofore had offered me a certain protection, a wall built and maintained by my husband, I now realized. No one could ever be for me what John had been because he had known me when, and that had kept me away from the true reality of my years. I’d joked about bifocals, about memory loss, about the losing battle with gravity. But I hadn’t really felt my age until now. Was I ready for the rocker? No. But was I as young as I’d thought? No.
Sitting at that table and smiling falsely, my mouth had gone dry. I’d seen that I was in for many more grim discoveries, psychological land mines. I’d known when I met John that he was uniquely suited to me in hundreds of ways. But there’d been the knowing in his life, and there was the knowing after his death.
The restaurant, optimistically called Lucky’s, was a small, storefront place, the owner from some eastern European country. He spoke almost no English. Matthew went there often—the food was cheap, the servings large, the décor charming, in its way. Personal, at least, with black-and-white family photographs on the wall. Near the cash register was an absurd little grouping of porcelain dogs and cats. But the meat had been tough, the vegetables watered-down, the laminated menus fingerprinted with grease in a way less funky than disgusting. One hopes to discover something in restaurants like this: Waiters full of character and charm. Fabulous food at rock-bottom prices. Neither of these had been there. The food had been awful, and the staff silent and sad beneath a veneer of pleasantness.
Or maybe it was just me.
John had talked, soon after he was diagnosed, about a sense of separateness, of seeing through cancer glasses, thus having distorted vision. He was not among the rest of us anymore, he’d said; he felt irrevocably apart.
I felt apart now, too, looking at the world through widow glasses. The mantel clock chimed ten. I stood up and moved to look out the window, wrapped my arms around myself, and noticed, dully, that I’d lost more weight. I thought, It’s true that when someone you love dies, part of you dies, too. And then must be reborn. And many people were reborn, they suffered through their pain and emerged victorious: their love for the lost one revered but put away, their lives now open to a separate course. Others never did quite recover. I’d made a promise—many promises—to John to be among those who not only survived but thrived.
I was trying, in what I supposed were haphazard ways. Move to a new town; befriend the child next door; eat dinner with a tortured young man afloat in the restless sea of his own young life; entertain the notion of creating my own business, in my own way. Reestablish contact with the girlfriends of yesteryear.
What luck that I had found them again. I had been thinking of having them all here, inviting them for next weekend. I had envisioned us sprawled out in the living room, talking, talking, talking, without fear of censure, without embarrassment of need. Now I didn’t know if I was up to it.
I went to the Chinese chest and pulled out a slip of paper: Iron grates. I had no idea. Quickly, I pulled another: Japanese tea ceremony. Again, I had no idea.
I went upstairs to my bedroom, got the packet of photos from my nightstand drawer, and pulled one out. It was of a courtyard in Portugal where there was a statue of a man whose mustache seemed intent on flying off his face. I remembered John taking that shot, remembered, too, that we’d just had lunch and he’d gotten a stain on his sweater, an unusual occurrence for such a fastidious man. The picture showed two old women dressed in black, sitting and talking, kerchiefs on their heads. One stared directly at the camera, her black-stockinged legs wide apart; the other sat in profile with her hands clasped in her lap, her knees together. I remembered that it was only after the picture was taken that the women smiled; one had had no teeth. Behind the women were buildings with walls the colors of apricot and burnt sienna and sage green. There were lace curtains at the window of one apartment, and draped over one of its wrought-iron balconies were white shirts, drying in the sun. Above that, a clothesline stretched from one window to another, full of more laundry, which probably was the reason John had taken the photograph; a gift to me and my odd predilection.
I remembered that after the shot was taken, those two women had asked John if he would like them to take a picture of us. Oh, no, we’d both said. We’d explained how neither of us liked to be photographed. Oh, no. What need did we have of photos when we had each other?
I dumped the rest of the pictures out on the bed. Façades of churches, a group of pigeons at the feet of a smiling old man, a lovely sunset. Not one of John. But here was one taken in Venice, and I remembered it distinctly. It might be good to revisit that particular memory.
The photo was of a gondola we’d ridden in. John hadn’t wanted to go for a gondola ride. He said he would feel like an idiot. I said, John. We’re in Venice. Everybody who comes to Venice rides in a gondola. Precisely, he said. I stood blinking at him. Finally I said, SO? So you can’t do something just because other people do? Since when? Do you sit alone at the opera? Did you invent fishing? This is different, John said. It’s too much a display. And it’s pedestrian, really; we can find something much better to do. Yes, I said, let’s go and find something none of the idiotic tourists do. We’d jousted back and forth, I far more angry than John—he was actually amused—and I think it was that air of superiority, Ricky smirking at Lucy, that made me so furious. When the gondolier pulled up to the pier where we were arguing and asked if we wanted a ride, John said, “Why, yes, we were just talking about that!” and he jumped into the boat and offered his hand to me. What was I to do? I had no idea where I was; I spoke no Italian; and John had the room key with the hotel name and address. I vowed never again to travel without my own key.
I remembered seething, sitting in that gondola with my arms crossed tightly over my chest as we glided along. Some better part of me had wanted to shrug off my vile mood and point to the many things that delighted me, to share with John what my friend Marianne had said about Venice: that it was like an aging beauty queen in need of some serious dental work. Instead, I took in the sights frozen-faced, and John eventually positioned himself so that he would not have to see me. And that poor gondolier, clueless as to what our problem was, wanting only for us to attend to his weak tenor and the charm of his navigation. I would have none of it. At the end of the ride, we tipped him extravagantly—each of us—apparently agreeing at least
on this point: Someone so ill treated ought to get some kind of reward at the end of his ordeal. The irony, of course, was that John had ended up enjoying the ride and I’d hated it. When we disembarked, he’d snapped the photo in a move of ironic sentimentality that had only made me more angry. The red velvet seats festooned with gold plastic flowers! That evening had not ended well. We’d gone to bed angry and had slept as far from each other as possible.
I sat still, the photograph in my hand. The memory had not helped so much after all. It had not reminded me that life was not perfect with John. Instead, it had made me long for him with a deep and specific desire; I could feel it from my hips all the way up into the back of my throat. I would never stop longing for him. I would never be happy without him. I was the kind of person who needed to share something in order to fully experience it myself. But I had lost my partner, and I would never find a relationship even close to what I had. What was the point in pushing myself through the rest of my days?
I slid off the bed and onto the floor and put my hands over my face. “Please,” I said. “Oh, please.”
I felt suddenly that something had come into the room with me, a presence, and I held stone still. I looked at the chair in the corner of the room, and there he was.
“John?” I put my hand to my chest, clenched at my sweater. “Are you here?”
He was smiling. His legs were crossed; he sat relaxed and looking over at me.
I began to cry. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, and there was such radiant love on his face, my pain disappeared. I felt pleasantly hypnotized, caught between worlds. “Are you hungry?” I asked. “You must be starving.”
His face, looking back at me.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
I started to get up, and he shook his head no. I patted the floor. “Can you come here, then?” He stayed still. “Then I’m coming over there.”