Because She Is Beautiful

by Cameron Dougan

  "I've been a little drinking."

  She asked if there was something the matter; then, after a long silence, "Michael, dear, are you there?"

  "I need to get out."

  "Shall we meet somewhere?"

  "I don't want to go out."

  "You're not making sense. Do you want to come here? I'll tell Robert I'm busy."

  When Robert called, she canceled. He seemed more amused than concerned when she told him why.

  "Another hangnail?" he said.

  "That's not funny. You know if you didn't trust Michael, you'd be more respectful of him."

  After that he became serious and promised to check up.

  An hour later she buzzed Michael into the building. She left the door unlocked and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She dried her hands and checked her makeup. Still he hadn't knocked. She cracked the door and discovered him sitting on her umbrella stand.

  "It was open," she said. "What are you doing out here?"

  His hair was matted on one side, short spikes curling up with no part. He stared at her a long moment, then seemed to remember himself and produced a bottle of champagne from under each arm. "Dinner!"

  She held the door wide as he shuffled through.

  "I thought we might go out," she said.

  Her jacket was hanging from the doorknob.

  "Not a good idea." He waggled a finger and headed for the kitchen. "Tonight, I am not meant to be seen . . . no, you're . . . you shouldn't be seen with me. And I can see I've ruined your plans."

  "Nonsense."

  "You're lying. Good. Let me crack these. Stay out there. Go. I'll be damned if he gets them."

  She stood in the hall, debating whether to put on her jacket. There was a loud pop and splatter, a curse. She peered around the corner. He was on the floor with a sponge.

  "Here," she said.

  She pulled the sponge from his hand and squeezed it out in the sink. She added soap and ran fresh water into it and got on her knees. Champagne had dripped down the side of the cupboard, collecting at the base—a small puddle of popped bubbles like the shell of an abandoned honeycomb.

  "Has anyone told you how lovely you look this evening?" he said, hoisting himself up by the refrigerator handle.

  "Dear, go lie on the sofa."

  "Does Robert forget to tell you how nice you—look at you there: the very picture of scrubbing. What brand is that sponge? I want to buy it. All right, all right, I've got the bottle."

  He put a hand out to steady himself and veered around the corner as though the floor had tipped. The doorjamb was shiny where he'd touched it and she wiped it, then wiped the refrigerator handle and tossed the sponge in the sink. She dried her hands on a rag and took down two glasses.

  "Oh, dear," she heard him say, and then a volley of thuds like trampling hooves. He'd knocked over a tower of books and lay sprawled on the pile, the bottle of champagne in one hand, an open book in the other as though he were reading. He looked up innocently and took a swig from the bottle.

  "Tender Is the Night," he said. "Loved it." He tossed it aside and picked up another. "The End of the Affair? I always like to poke about, see what you're reading."

  "Robert gave those to me."

  "How very maudlin."

  "I won't read them. They're not . . . he keeps giving them to me and I feel guilty. I just add them to that stack."

  "A stack of self-pity."

  "Well, now you're covered in it. Are you going to stay on the floor all night?"

  He raised himself and came over to the sofa and collapsed.

  "I've got it," she said, peeling his fingers from the bottle and filling his glass.

  His tie knot was twisted up under his shirt collar as though someone had yanked it like a leash. His eyelids were swollen and red. She gathered his feet, propped them on a crushed velvet pouf, and pulled off his shoes.

  "I'm impossible," he said. "Hopeless and impossible. I keep telling people. I warn them. They don't believe me. They insist on getting close. They can't resist my charm. . . . Oscar's leaving me."

  He pulled a throw pillow to his stomach and stroked the gold braided fringe.

  "I like this pillow."

  He touched the tassel to his nose.

  "They always leave," he said.

  She sat on the pouf and cradled his feet to her side so that they wouldn't slip. His knees were wet from the floor.

  "There was one a few years back," he said. "We saw a bald man at a restaurant, and I told him I'd never fucked a bald man and thought it might be exciting. You know what the fool did? The next night when I came home, he'd shaved all his hair off—all his beautiful black hair—and I laughed. I can still see him in the foyer, grinning like a seal, the light glaring off his head." He rubbed his eyes. "Poor fool."

  "Did you say something to make Oscar leave?"

  "He insists it isn't me. I don't believe him. I just can't let well enough alone. He wears the most appalling clothes. I feel an obligation to convert his tastes. You spilled on your tie, I say, and brush at it, then act surprised that it's only the pattern, and he always believes me at first. He slaps my hand away. He was always slapping my hand."

  "You tease me about my taste."

  "Are you leaving me too?"

  "I know you don't mean half the things you say."

  "Half? That's better than I thought."

  He pressed his glass to his forehead, eyes tightly shut. Condensation ran down his nose, and he opened his eyes and wiped his face on his sleeve.

  "I must want him to leave. Otherwise he wouldn't be packing."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He shrugged.

  "Michael, do you love Oscar?"

  "Do you love Robert?"

  She stared at him. "We're talking about you."

  "Let's talk about you for once. Let's talk about anything, anything at all, but not about me, me, me."

  His toe touched her side.

  "I don't know if I love Oscar," he said. "How upset do I seem?"

  "Very."

  "Then I guess I do love him. The first time I saw Oscar was at a party at my apartment."

  "And where was I?"

  She pinched his toe.

  "Probably at some fancier party that I wasn't invited to."

  "You said you met him through a friend."

  "In a manner of speaking."

  "Go on. Tell me."

  "I've told you this before. He kept staring all night. We never so much as exchanged a word. Later, I went to fetch someone's coat. He was waiting in the bedroom. He pushed the door shut and we just looked at each other. I had my back to the door and he put his arms out to either side of my head, pinning me. I thought he was going to hit me. I don't know why. It was the look in his eyes. Like I'd betrayed him somehow. Then he kissed my forehead."

  She poured more champagne and got up and sat next to him on the sofa. He held the glass to his eye, staring sideways at her through the gold liquid.

  "Maybe I'm saving Oscar from myself," he said. "I couldn't watch him pack anymore. He triple-folds his shirts."

  "Poor sweetie. How horrible."

  "Someone said to me once, Do you love me for being me, or because I remind you of you? Truthfully, he wasn't anything like me at all. It's always the ones that leave that I care about the most. The ones that stay, I can't forgive."

  He covered his face with the pillow, the tassel clenched in his hand. She thought he was crying, but when he took the pillow away, his eyes were dry. He spit lint from his mouth, let his empty glass slip to the sofa cushion, and rubbed at his eyes again.

  "Stop." She caught his hand. "They're red enough already."

  She clutched tighter when he tried to pull away. His arm tensed; then his whole body seemed to sigh. She pressed her mouth to his ear and whispered, "Stop hating yourself."

  "I hate myself."

  "I won't let you."

  "Don't let me."

  He started to shake. She held his heavy
head to her lips, the comfort of silent words. She covered the side of his head with kisses and turned him to her and touched the smooth skin of his forehead, wet to her cheeks and chin and hand. He kissed her hand, pressed it to his cheek, and then kissed it again, nuzzled his head against her arm, turned his lips to hers.

  "Michael—"

  His mouth grazed her neck. His eyes were closed.

  "Don't let me," he whispered.

  He kissed her breast through the sweater.

  "I won't," she said.

  She took his head in her arms and imagined him with his lover, curled, cradled—they were her arms.

  "I won't let you," she said. He started to undo his pants, and she let her legs swing over, straddling his lap. She felt him struggling with the belt and clasp, the zipper, his fingers, knuckles pressing.

  "I want you," he said.

  She wanted desperately to lessen his pain. She lifted herself on her knees so he could kick his pants down and tug at his underwear and unbutton her pants. He raced to put himself inside her, sharp fleeting resistance.

  "Okay," she said, curling over him, breathing into the hollow of his mouth. She ground her hips faster, fighting an already slow softening that she could feel, and then he was out of her.

  "I want to make you happy," she said.

  He put his finger to her lips. She clung to him, his chin digging into her shoulder. Then she rolled off. His penis rested against the base of his stomach, foreign and unexplainable, white under the ceiling light. His breathing slowed. The air in the room was warm, soured by their champagne breath. She could hear a truck in the distance coming over the bridge; its engine a whoosh growing louder like a downdraft of wind, that first curtain of rain, countless droplets forming one steady voice. The city's cries at night were the same, constant if one listened.

  "Well, that's that," she said, snatching the fringed pillow. "It was time we got that out of our systems."

  She flung the pillow across the room, tassels whipping. It rattled a picture, knocking it aslant, and landed on the pile of books. Michael labored to stand. He steadied himself against the sofa arm and rubbed his eyes. His pants were tangled about his ankles, black socks, pale calves. He pulled his pants up slowly, tucking in the tails of his shirt. He tried to smile.

  She started. "Did it suddenly occur to you that I—"

  "Darling, you're very beautiful."

  "You should go," she said.

  "Always beautiful."

  He slid his belt through the buckle and centered it to his fly. He stood before her, then stooped, and she turned her cheek to his lips.

  "Maybe Oscar will still be there," she said. "Make up. Finish what you started here."

  "Forgive me," he said. "It's not you. I'll call."

  He stopped at the door to rest, bracing himself for the flights down. He was too drunk. He was going to smash his arm or his leg, wake up in Emergency, a fitting end to the evening. Even if he did make it down to the street, where was he going to go? She imagined him curled up on a grate, shivering the night away. She should ask him to stay, she thought.

  "Michael, did you come here tonight to make love to me?"

  The door clicked shut behind him as he left.

  After a while, she got up and bolted the door. She stacked the fallen books and straightened the picture on the wall. She picked up the pillow and her pants and tossed them on the sofa, went to the kitchen for the second bottle of champagne, and took it into the bedroom. Robert never called.

  She wanted to stay mad at Michael, but she couldn't. She saw him two nights later. He said everything was fine, and she wanted to believe him. Then he said it again, and the repetition suggested he'd already determined otherwise. She was too tired to talk, and he was talking to avoid the silences. He had left her already, as had all the other men she'd ever given herself to. All but one.

  "You seem upset," said Robert that night. "You're hiding something."

  Were her eyes different, she wondered, windows that Robert could see through? She met his gaze unflinchingly.

  "I'm tired."

  "You look tired."

  She tried not to blink. Her emotions were a dark tangled ball wound up in her gaze for all to see. Could she turn her eyes into walls?

  "Tired, but beautiful," Robert said, and she leaned over to kiss him.

  A week later, she saw Michael again.

  "Oscar left a pair of silk pajamas behind. You don't suppose it's his way of getting me to call?"

  She imagined Michael's apartment, the long hall to the bedroom with its many hidden closets and cabinets, the pristine living room, always ready for entertaining—all unchanged by Oscar's absence.

  The next weekend she went to the Hamptons alone. She shopped for dinner and spent the evening cooking. She opened a bottle of wine and sat on the porch counting fireflies. She felt she owed someone an apology. She didn't know for what.

  She called Michael on Monday and they met for lunch.

  "There's Edie," he said, glancing over Kim's shoulder. "What is she doing with that necklace?"

  Michael waved. Show us, he mouthed. The woman pretended not to see. He waved again. She nodded to the man in sunglasses who was with her. He closed the case, tucked it under an arm, and left the restaurant.

  "Did you see the size of those diamonds?" said Michael.

  After lunch, Edie came over.

  "You miser," said Michael.

  "Darling, I couldn't show you. I'm selling it for a client."

  "Who?"

  "I can't say."

  "Let me pinch that naughty tush. Do you know Kim Reilly?"

  "We've met."

  "Who was the thug?"

  "The driver. I said I couldn't meet today. She asked where I was dining and sent him over. The audacity. He was supposed to be here an hour ago."

  "The lot of the first wife," said Michael.

  "No clues." Edie kissed him on the cheek. "But only in New York, right? I'm late." She headed for the door.

  "Next time share the goods," he called after her.

  "I'm late too," said Kim.

  "Where are you off to?"

  She didn't answer.

  "You didn't want to see the necklace?"

  She reached for her pocketbook and stood.

  "You're still angry."

  "I'm going."

  "Who's stopping you?"

  To see his almost smile, as though there was something left to say, reminded her that there was only the same thing to say, a false assurance that somehow couldn't express the sticky, saplike feeling of what had passed.

  "Forget about it," she said, half to herself.

  He had vanity to retreat behind. She had Robert.

  In the weeks following she avoided parties Michael might attend. She steered clear of Fifth Avenue near his apartment and the street where he worked. New York was such a small city. That she managed not to see him for so long surprised her. She stopped worrying. Certainly he was avoiding her too. There were other people she knew to fill tables with. Finally, one night at a dinner, someone mentioned seeing Michael arrive.

  "By the bar."

  They pointed.

  "Upstairs."

  She looked.

  "By the coat check," said another.

  She couldn't find him. Why was she looking? She never mentioned to Robert that they weren't speaking, and it never occurred to him that Michael was missing from her life, because in his mind nothing was ever missing from her life.

  Purple Noon was playing at the Paris. She had a popcorn lunch in the back row and didn't get up to leave until well after the credits had rolled and the house lights had come up. Outside in the shade under the marquee, she took her sweater off and draped it over her shoulders. A woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat drawled on to another woman about a bulletin she'd seen at her church on finding "giftedness." The other asked what that meant. They began to discuss volunteer work.

  "I knew I just had to hold those little HIV babies," said the woman
with the hat.

  She made them sound like some kind of candy, or an animal she'd seen in a pet-shop window.

  Kim thought of her mother. After deciding not to go back to school, Kim had wondered about working with the elderly, perhaps cancer patients, or whether that would dredge up too many painful images. HIV babies were different, she thought.

  The woman with the hat told the other to call up volunteer services at Saint Vincent's Hospital, and that afternoon when Kim got home, that's exactly what she did. She asked the person in charge how she could get involved.

  "I want to work with children," she said.

  "That doesn't narrow things much."

  "A friend told me that you have a program."

  "What's your friend's name, honey? We've got lots of programs."

  "I want to hold babies," said Kim.

  "Have you worked with infants before?"

  "No."

  Kim could hear papers shuffling.

  "I could schedule you for orientation this Thursday, eleven o'clock."

  "That's fine. Do I need to bring anything?"

  "Just yourself."

  Kim gave her name and number and felt a surge of relief.

  Kim could feel Robert's energy rise when he described the car he'd bought for Davis, the vacation he'd planned for Christine. She deserved it; she'd made law review her first year.

  "And she's seeing someone," said Robert. "We finally met. Nice young man from Virginia. He's also a law student. Imagine that—two lawyers in the family."

  In contrast, Davis had changed jobs for the third time.

  "We had a long talk," Robert said. "It was good."

  "Darling, I knew if you just sat down with him . . ."

  "You were right."

  "He needed that."

  "Wait till he sees the car."

  "He needs you. When you reach out like that, it's just . . . he wants it so badly and he doesn't know how to ask."

  "Sometimes it's difficult."

  "They're going to love their gifts."

  "I guess." Robert stood at the window with his back to her.

  "A moment ago you sounded sure," she said.

  "I've spoiled him. It doesn't matter what I give him anymore. A car—he'll ask if I'm paying for the insurance as well."

  "Robert, please."

  He shrugged. "What do I know?"