Yesterday Minnie told me she has two grown sons by another man. Twins, Ronald and Donald. Donald is doing time in upstate New York—for what she didn’t say and I didn’t ask. “But Ronald never been no trouble. He come outa me first, thass why. It’s the second twin thass always the trouble chile.” Ronald is married and works at the Friendly’s ice cream plant in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, Minnie told me. “I keep axin’ him to come visit us an’ bring his kids so I can see my gran’babies. But he ain’t come yet. Thass okay, though. I understand. He busy.” When I told Minnie that I have twins, too—a daughter who runs a soup kitchen in San Francisco and a son who’s stationed at Fort Hood—she nodded indifferently. And when I told her that, when I was a kid, I had worked at a Friendly’s restaurant, she had no reaction at all. Minnie likes me well enough—not only because of the extra money I give her, I like to think—but she doesn’t seem to entertain the possibility that she and I have anything in common.
Well, why would she? She’s poor; I’m not. She’s black; I’m white. Minnie says her commute takes her almost two hours either way. After she catches an early bus out of Newark, she transfers twice, then takes the ferry from Hoboken into Manhattan. At the South Ferry station, she catches the Lexington Avenue local up to the Spring Street stop, then walks over to our apartment on Elizabeth. The trip in reverse takes longer, she says. Some nights she doesn’t return home until eight o’clock or later. My walk from our apartment to my studio space at the artists’ collective on Bleecker takes ten minutes when I don’t stop along the way, collecting sidewalk discards that I might incorporate into my art. (On trash collection day, that ten-minute walk sometimes takes me an hour or more, depending on what people have thrown out. A few weeks ago, I had such a good haul that I had to grab an abandoned shopping cart and wheel my treasures to the studio. I was going to leave the cart on the sidewalk out front, but then I lugged that up to my workplace, too.) One night when she got home, Minnie said, she put the key in the lock, opened the door, and smelled chocolate. The Spanish kid, who’s not supposed to leave Africa by himself, had done just that. Left to his own devices, Africa had gotten the bright idea to take a bath in cocoa. “He run hot water, then dump this whole big can of Swiss Miss that I got cheap at the flea market because of the gone-by date.” Minnie was headachy and dog tired, she said, and when she saw Africa sitting in all that chocolate bathwater, she beat him silly, splashing cocoa every which way. “He cryin’ so hard, he give hisself a asthma ’tack and I say, ‘Where your inhaler at?’ And he go, while he wheezin’ away, he go, ‘It in school, Mama.’ And so we end up at the emergency for two, three hour. After we get home, I put him to bed and start cleanin’ up all that mess. Seem like no mo’ than a few hours go by before I had to wake up, let Oswaldo in cuz he be bangin’ on the door—on time for once. By the time I got ready, I had to run to catch that bus.”
That’s another thing Minnie doesn’t know we have in common: that I used to hit my boy, too. Andrew, the second-born of my twins. Poor, sweet Andrew, who looked so beautiful when he slept. Who, despite those wallopings, always kept my tirades from his father. His sisters did, too. Why was that? I wonder. Were they being protective of me? Were they afraid that, if they told, I might turn my anger on them, too? Or that I’d be taken away—carted off by the authorities the way I was when I was a little girl? No, that was my fear, not theirs. . . . Of the three kids, Andrew’s the one with the most O’Day in him. This? Oh, yeah, I fell off my bike and bumped my head on the sidewalk, Dad. . . . Me and Jay Jay were horsing around over at his house. It’s just a black and blue mark, Dad. It’s no big deal. If I hadn’t known where those battle scars really came from, I might have believed him, too.
I didn’t want Andrew to enlist; I begged him not to. Every night before I go to bed, I get down on my knees, make the sign of the cross, and ask Jesus to please, please spare Andrew from being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Sometimes I get scared that God or karma or whoever or whatever’s in charge of retribution will pay me back for the way I singled him out. Or because I walked away from my marriage. It amuses Viveca, I think, to see me praying; she doesn’t believe in God. “What is it you’re praying for?” she asked me one night, and I kept it vague. “World peace,” I said. But mostly what I beg God for is my son’s safety. Please, I pray, let me die if I have to, but spare my son. Let Andrew not have to go to either of those places and be killed.
Okay, I tell myself. If you’re not going into work again today, then do something else. It’s after eleven already. Go down to the lobby and get the mail. Check your e-mail.
Viveca’s two-day-old message is titled Mykonos! I click on it. “Here’s the villa where we’ll be staying,” it says. “Have a look.” In defiance, I decide not to open the attachment—those pictures she wants me to see. . . . Our apartment, our housekeeper. What’s hers, Viveca often reminds me, is mine now, too. Nevertheless, while she’s away, I’m supposed to sign that prenup agreement her lawyer has drawn up. When it was hand delivered by way of messenger from Attorney Philip Liebmann’s Sixth Avenue office, Viveca said, “I told Phil it wasn’t necessary, but he was insistent. Got a little snippy with me in fact. I’ve known Phil since I was a child; he was my father’s lawyer and his tennis buddy. He feels paternal toward me, that’s all. But, sweetheart, it’s just a boring legal formality that’s going to make an overly protective old man happy. Don’t read any more into it than that. What’s mine is yours. You know that.”
Chapter Four
Orion Oh
She didn’t just walk out on me one day; she migrated to Manhattan in stages. Day trips into the city to meet with gallery owners or important collectors turned into overnights. And after she won that NEA grant, those overnights turned into four-day work weeks because she used the money to rent studio space at a building in SoHo—a place that was owned and operated by some artists’ cooperative that Viveca had connections with.
“You’ve worked successfully at home all these years,” I reminded her. “Why do you suddenly need to make art in New York?” Because she wanted to come up from the basement and be in the company of other artists instead of our washer and dryer, she said. Because in New York she’d be able to get on the subway and, fifteen minutes later, be standing in front of some masterpiece at the Met or MoMA, or walking into some gallery in Brooklyn to see a show by some up-and-coming artist that everyone was talking about. “Sweetie, I just want to try it,” she told me. “It’s an experiment. It’s only for a year.”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want us to turn into one of those long-distance-marriage couples,” I told her. “Look what happened to Jeff and Ginny’s marriage when they tried it.” For one thing, she said, she took exception to the term “long-distance” when you could get from Three Rivers to Manhattan or vice versa in under three hours. And for another, she wanted to remind me that it was Jeff’s infidelity, not the geographical distance between him and Ginny, that ended their marriage. I considered making the point that being a workaholic was a kind of infidelity, too, but I held my tongue. How many times, when the kids were younger and she was housebound with them, had she leveled that same criticism at me?
“And this is something you really, really want?” I said. “Something you think is going to fuel your work?”
She nodded emphatically, no trace of ambivalence whatsoever.
“Then let me talk to Muriel. Maybe she can do some juggling in the department and finagle me a leave of absence. There’s got to be plenty of sublets in Manhattan, right?”
She folded her arms against her chest. “And what would you do all day long while I was working? Hang around some tiny little studio apartment? I know you, Orion. You’d go stir-crazy.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said. “Because I’d never be resourceful enough to get up and leave the apartment. Go out and engage with one of the most exciting cities in the world. I’d probably just sit around, watching soap operas and twiddling my thumbs.”
I smiled wh
en I said it, but Annie looked exasperated. For one thing, she said, Viveca had already offered her a room in her apartment, rent free. What was she supposed to do? Tell her that her husband would be moving in, too? And more importantly, she wanted to be able to immerse herself in her work without having to keep to a schedule, or even look at a clock if she didn’t want to. “But how could I do that if I knew you were waiting around for me to quit for the day?” She took my hand in hers and squeezed it. “Sweetie, this is such a great opportunity for me. It would be for one year, not a lifetime. And we’d still see each other every weekend. I’d like to think we have a strong enough marriage to handle that.”
I smiled. “Just for a year, huh? With weekend furloughs?” She nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s try it.”
If she was preparing for a show or had to hobnob with some wealthy art patron who was in town for the weekend, the only day she could spare me was Sunday. I’d drive down to New Haven and meet her at the train station. We’d walk over to the green, grab some lunch at Claire’s or the Mermaid Bar. Compare notes about the kids—which one of us had heard from which, which of the three we were worried about that week. (More often than not, it was our wild card, Marissa. Or Andrew, who by then had entered the military and was facing the possibility of deployment.) We’d spend a couple of hours together, then head back to Union Station. Stand together out on the platform and, when the train came into view, hug each other, kiss good-bye. Then she’d board the Acela or the Metroliner and ride away. And as her one-year New York experiment turned into a year and a half after a couple of big purchases courtesy of viveca c, those kisses became pecks, the hugs became perfunctory. “My part-time wife” I’d started calling her, at first in jest, then in jest-with-an-edge. Later still, I hurled the term at her in outright anger.
Looking back, I’m amazed at how much in denial I was about her and Viveca. Yeah, I’d get worried from time to time, but what I thought was that maybe she’d gotten involved with some other guy. I’d imagine him, worry about him, even sometimes picture her walking hand in hand with him—some artist or musician type, some lanky younger guy with a porkpie hat and a couple of days’ worth of stubble. But the only time I confronted her about another man, she got huffy—said that it was all about her work and that my insecurity was my problem, not hers. And hey, whenever I called her? She was almost always there where she was supposed to be—at her studio or at night at Viveca’s. Once when I called and Viveca answered, she said, “You know, Orrin, one of these days you and I will have to meet in person.” I let it go that she’d gotten my name wrong, and that we’d already met several years back at the Biennial opening. “I’d like that, too,” I said. I went down to visit Annie at the apartment two or three times, but each time it was when Viveca was out of town for the weekend. I still don’t know when they made the switch from roommates to lovers. Annie’s told me it happened over time, that their affair wasn’t “premeditated.” I believe her. Interesting, though, the way she’d put it. As if it was a crime. Which it was, in a way: the murder of our marriage.
Sometimes we want something to be true so badly that we convince ourselves that it is true. How many times had I suggested that to one of the undergrads sitting across from me in my office? Some self-deluding young woman who was trying to convince herself that a boyfriend’s having smacked her around was a one-time thing; some young guy’s assertion that, although sex with other guys excited him, he wasn’t really gay. “Put your hand out,” I’d tell these students. “Now bring it closer. Now closer still.” And when their hands were a half inch from their noses, I’d ask them to describe what they saw. “It’s blurry,” they’d say, and I’d suggest that sometimes the closer we got to a situation, the less clear it looked. And that when wishful thinking trumped the reality we might otherwise be able to see more clearly and manage, we were setting ourselves up for a rude awakening. . . . Psychologist, heal thyself. Little by little, I began to withdraw my own hand from my face, as it were. Began to face the fact that Annie and I no longer were together. That she had defected.
The showdown came one Sunday afternoon when, in the middle of an argument we were having about her absenteeism, I said, “Do you even want to be married to me anymore?” We were in our kitchen. I was at the stove, making dinner—frying up eggplant on one burner, simmering marinara on another. Annie was at the table, going through two weeks’ worth of accumulated mail. Of course I do, I wanted to hear her say, but what she said, instead, was that she wasn’t sure anymore. That she was confused.
“Confused?” I picked up the frying pan and slammed it back down against the burner. The noise made her jump. “Well, if you’re confused, how the hell do you think I feel?” At this stage of our crumbling marriage, our battle roles had reversed themselves. Annie had always been the one who yelled and banged things when we argued; I was the one who spoke softly and civilly, maintaining the upper hand. Now I was the shouter, the slammer. She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped herself. Stood and walked out of the room, out of our house, and down the road. I stood at the window, watching her go. That was my rude awakening.
Later, when the meal I’d made was starting to go cold, she came back. We sat in silence across the table from each other. Chewed, swallowed. Each bite I took landed like a stone against my stomach. “Look, if you’re confused, then go see someone,” I finally said. “Or maybe we can go together like we did that other time. I can make some calls, get a referral to a good marriage counselor and we can—”
“I am seeing someone,” she said. “Romantically, I mean, not professionally.” I stared at her, a forkful of food poised in front of my mouth. “I still love you, Orion,” she told me in tears. “I always will. But I’m not in love with you anymore. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I’ve fallen in love with someone else.”
That someone else, she said, was Viveca.
“Viveca? . . . Viveca?”
Annie had gone with me to see that movie, I remember—Natural Born Killers. It was my idea, not hers. And about ten minutes into it, when Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson began murdering people in a bar for the fun of it, she took hold of my arm and whispered that she needed to leave. “It’s satire,” I’d whispered back. “Cartoon violence. Don’t take it so literally.” But she let go of my arm, stood, and walked out of the multiplex. Walked around the mall until the film was over. I finally found her sitting at a table outside of Au Bon Pain, cardboard coffee cup in front of her, looking sad and lost. Was she thinking of leaving me even back then? Wrestling with her attraction to women, maybe, or suffering because of my insensitivity? There was that lesbian friend of hers who visited us one time—that woman Priscilla. She and Annie had waitressed together back when Annie was in her teens. They’d been close, she said, and for a fleeting moment I wondered how close. But I’d dismissed it. Because even if they had been intimate, it was no big deal. Some kids experiment at that age. It’s how they figure out who they are. . . . No, I should have been more in touch with her feelings and her fears. Should have gotten up and left the movie with her that afternoon—been less of a therapist trying to fathom my patient Petra’s psyche and more of a husband taking care of my wife. But no, I’d stayed, had sat through a film that, frankly, sickened me, too. Well, what does it matter at this point? The divorce is final. Their wedding invitations are already out. Mine, ripped in half, is in the second, smaller duffel bag I packed last night—the one filled with the stuff I’ve taken along for the little oceanside ceremony I’m planning to have once I get to North Truro. Or maybe I should say if I get there. I don’t think we’ve moved a mile in the last fifteen minutes. Well, so what, dude? It’s not like you’re going to be late for work. You’re unemployed, remember?
My “early retirement” from the university was an exhausted surrender, not an admission that Jasmine Negron’s version of what had happened that night was accurate. Instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to a colleague they’d known and worked with for years, Mur
iel and her cohorts had gotten behind a doctoral student who’d received a lukewarm evaluation from me the semester before. Once upon a time, Muriel and I had been friends. Lunch pals. We’d served together on committees, carpooled to conferences. We two and our spouses had seen each other socially during those early years. But after she was named director, things changed. She informed her counselors of her intent to create a “paper trail” about everything that transpired in our department, then generated a maddening number of forms and reports. And she expected all this additional paperwork to be completed on time, not a day or two late, no matter how much our caseloads had swelled because of the policy changes she had put into place. She was a stickler about those deadlines—a pain in the ass about them—and a strictly-by-the-book administrator who expected the rest of us to recast ourselves in her image, irrespective of our own treatment styles and philosophies. She intimidated the younger members of the department, many of whom sought me out about how to deal with her demands and criticisms. And because I’d gone to bat for some of them, Muriel pulled me into her office one afternoon and accused me of undermining her authority and encouraging others to do the same. She and I had butted heads on a number of occasions and on a number of issues. And so, when Jasmine filed her complaint, Muriel appointed an ad hoc committee to investigate: Blanche, Bev, and Marsha, feminists all, none of whom could be considered my ally. Beyond a shadow of a doubt? Innocent until proven guilty? Not with that gang of four. Muriel went to Dean Javitz and argued that my behavior had undermined the integrity of the entire Counseling Services program.