Face Tells the Secret

by Bernstein, Jane

  “My father would have liked you,” Harley said that night in the dark. “He respected intelligence above all.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She didn’t like Jewish people,” he said.

  Harley dropped me off and went to search for his younger son.

  “I thought your parents were without prejudice,” I said the next day at dinner.

  “They were,” said Harley. “And they wouldn’t tolerate anyone who expressed any prejudice either. Never did I hear a negative word from either of them.”

  “How did you know your mother didn’t like Jewish people when she never said a negative word?” I asked.

  “Hon!” said Harley. “Mother didn’t dislike Jewish people.”

  A week later, the perfect chair arrived. It fit nicely in the living room. Harley sat on it that night. I brushed and flossed my teeth, sent off a couple of emails, and returned to the darkened room. “Are you coming to bed?” I asked.

  He stayed in the chair, holding his cell phone, too worried to sleep.

  At first, I absorbed his worry and fretted when he could not reach a son. Soon, though, these premonitions of disaster became nightly events that made it impossible for him to focus on anything else. He was too worried to have dinner at home and preferred noisy restaurants where conversation was impossible. Worry prevented him from socializing with my friends or going out of town. I remembered him saying on our first date that when he worried nothing else mattered. Now I felt it.

  If I approached him in his chair, he could not see or hear me. I might face him, might speak in a loud voice. The emptiness of his gaze made me feel negated, blotted out.

  I’d wanted to let him have his space, to sleep where he was comfortable, but one night when I stood in front of him in his chair, I was hit hard by the reality that nothing of me existed for him—my joy, my woes, the blood running through my veins, —they were nothing, and I was nothing, and suddenly I was screaming, and even then he stayed motionless in his chair, nothing behind his eyes, and I began pulling at my hair, then his, then yanking him upward by the collar.

  Frightened by the outburst, I grabbed my coat and left the house. It was as if all the adult layers had been stripped off and my teenaged self had emerged. I walked down the streets in my neighborhood, looking at the glowing windows in the quiet homes, and trying to settle down. That night, I knew as well as I knew anything that deciding to live with Harley had been a huge mistake.

  Hours later, I fell into my empty bed and when I woke, Harley was sitting beside me. He put a mug of coffee on the night table and slipped the newspaper from its plastic bag. I took in his kind, untroubled face, his cashmere sweater, pressed trousers, shined shoes, and tried to explain how it felt to be unseen by him, that it turned me into a nonperson, and he said, “Everything is fine.” No, I said. I could not turn into the person I’d become the night before. But in daylight, Harley could not remember anything from the night before. In daylight, I was as perfect as his childhood in Sewickley, P.A.

  

  For a year I tried to leave him.

  I said we needed to part. He appeared to hear my words, said, “If that’s what you want,” promised to leave that day, and was home when I returned. Then we’d start to live together again until the next blowup and the next performance—my rage, his night away from home, his return, the talk, the promise, the status quo. At that point, we could hire understudies to play the parts for us. We didn’t even need to be in attendance anymore.

  Once, when I was extremely distraught and wept into my palms, he left for two days. On the way up to bed on the third night, someone said, “Hi, babe,” and I realized that Harley had been sitting in his chair in the dark living room. “Hi, sweetheart. Why didn’t you take my calls? I was so worried about you. The gas company called because no one could get in to read the meter. You look beautiful. I’ve missed you, babe. I’m dying inside without you.”

  Another time, we had a big talk before I left for a conference, and Harley vowed to be gone before I returned. He claimed he’d made arrangements to move his possessions. When I returned home, flowers and champagne were on the kitchen island, and before I could drop my bags, he’d rushed downstairs, caught me in his arms, and in a tremulous voice declared my homecoming the happiest moment of his whole g-damned life. He squeezed the breath out of me, inhaled my hair, told me that before we met he’d thought “love” was just a greeting card sentiment, no more real than Mickey Mouse, that I’d changed everything for him.

  I said, “You need to leave right now,” and as I struggled to free myself from his embrace, it seemed as if I was pushing away the only person who’d actually ever loved me.

  “I hate myself when I’m with you,” I tried to explain. “I’ve turned into a crazy person.”

  “Why do you say such things? You aren’t crazy. You’re beautiful,” Harley said, gazing at me with a moony, wildly inappropriate look.

  “I need you to be part of this breakup. Please tell me you hear what I’m saying.”

  I closed my eyes and waited and Harley eventually said, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  Harley promised. Then we had “the talk,” in which I solemnly, calmly yet again set out all the reasons our relationship did not work, and he sadly agreed I was right in some of what I’d said and promised to move out by the end of the week. I thanked him for listening, quickly turning away before I began to feel as if I had thrown the puppy.

  I had done this once. I’d been at a barbeque, idly gabbing, with a friend’s puppy in my arms, still fluffy as a chick. I’d never had a dog, only a couple of cats that deigned to share their living quarters with me. With cats, when they squirm in your arms, you toss them to the ground. That’s what I did when the puppy began to wiggle. I tossed him in an absentminded way, as if he were a cat. His scream sounded human. Over the years that scream echoed in my imagination. That’s the kind of person I am, I thought, a woman who throws a puppy to the ground. It was what I felt after I said something wounding and Harley looked up at me in a stunned, defenseless way.

  In my imagination I conferred with Harley’s former wife. “Throw his stuff onto the lawn,” said this woman, who was once my enemy and now my only ally.

  Following her advice, I set a laundry basket full of his neatly folded shirts on the grass. Then I backtracked, brought it back to the front porch and topped it off with a couple of pairs of jockey shorts—tighty-whiteys.

  Harley asked if I’d give him two weeks to find a place. I said no. “It’s been two weeks and two weeks for a year.”

  So he left. The next day, when I came home from work, I went from room to room, flicking on the lights. No indentation on the leather seat, no one in the chair. In the morning, I made myself coffee, then started upstairs with the mug in my hand, feeling as still as a lake inside, just being. I am just being, I thought.

  Soon I would feel very sad, I supposed. I would miss him, feel like an utter failure. But right then was the exquisite pleasure of just being.

  Two weeks passed. Harley called at work and asked if I’d drive with him to Sewickley that Sunday to look at a condo he was thinking of buying.

  “It’s not a good idea for either of us,” I said.

  “Rox. Babe. We’re not enemies. We’ve parted on good terms. How about doing me one last favor, which will take you two hours, three, max. I wouldn’t ask, but no one has better aesthetic sense than yours. No one. How big a deal could it be?”

  “Where are you living now?” I asked.

  Harley laughed. Heh. I knew that “heh” well. It meant I’d get two answers or no answers. Even so, I said, “So, are you going to tell me?”

  “In the Motel 6 by the airport.”

  “Really?”

  Again that chuckle. Heh. “Yes,” he said. Then, “No. Don’t be silly. Look, I’ll pic
k you up at noon and have you back by three at the latest, I promise.”

  “It’s just my opinion and nothing else? You swear on Yanni’s life?”

  Yanni was Harley’s younger son. His frat brothers had started calling him that because of his long black curls and his Greek mother, and the name stuck.

  “I swear,” said Harley.

  He arrived that Sunday a few minutes before noon. I stepped outside to meet him.

  It was the end of one life and the beginning of another.

  Five

  We arrived in Sewickley twenty minutes early, so Harley detoured through his old neighborhood, with its long, winding streets lined with houses built by robber barons. He parked in front of the big stone house where he had been raised, an impressive dwelling, with a slate roof, two turrets, a sunroom, and a generous yard where the ice rink had been. He got out of the car, and paced in front of the house, hands in his pockets.

  When I caught up with him, he said, “They painted the trim. It’s supposed to be gray.”

  I took in the chocolate-colored trim around the small windows and door and had to agree it didn’t work, given the pale gray stone façade.

  “Chinese people live here,” he said, as if this explained the odd choice. “My father would roll over if he knew.”

  I thought about our early days together, how I’d tugged on Harley for stories from his youth. I’d never questioned his perfect childhood, never wanted to scratch beneath the veneer in search of flaws. No, I’d hungered for details so I might have a door to make my way into his history.

  Now I said, “I thought your parents were completely unprejudiced.”

  “My parents were perfect,” he said, closing his eyes in happy remembrance. “They were wonderful people.”

  The condo was not far from the center of town, with its boutiques, faux gas lamps, manufactured charm. As we pulled into the parking lot outside the development, a green Jaguar edged beside us. A well-coiffed blonde popped out, tugged on her skirt as she approached to shake Harley’s hand and then mine, saying, “Liza.”

  She took the lock box off the door and ushered us inside. “Aren’t these ceilings incredible? And with the high-efficiency furnace, it’s not at all expensive to heat, and anyhow, the winters we had as kids are gone.”

  With another tug on the little skirt, this amazing woman, who put a positive spin on global warming at the same time as she described the virtues of this condo, worked a manicured hand over the granite counter tops and cabinets and turned to me: “Do you cook? Personally, I nuke the takeout and say voila, but whatever your personal style, you have to admit this is a fabulous place to entertain.”

  “I’m just the friend,” I said. “The second opinion.”

  As peppy Liza let her gaze linger on Harley, I imagined him settling into this apartment, with its wood-burning stove and Jacuzzi, buying manly leather furniture, a huge TV, and the La-Z-Boy recliner he’d confessed to wanting, to which I’d replied, “Tell me you’re joking!” I imagined the two of them, strolling arm in arm, down the charming main street, window shopping, stopping for a light lunch, Liza asking for a salad instead of fries. I’d known plenty of people who’d lived together with minimal interaction and no air of quiet desperation, people who did not demand the ineffable, as I did. Harley was anxious and depressed, but I believed if I were okay, the way I imagined Liza to be, I could leave Harley in his dark room and go about my day with a clear head. I believed this. I really did.

  “Is it mostly couples here?” I asked. “What if you’re single?”

  “I’m single!” She held out her ring-free hand. “There’s plen-ty happening here for us single folks. Give me a call, Harley. You have my card.”

  Harley was not amused. “Why did you tell her I was single?” he asked when we were back in the car.

  “She’s very well-groomed,” I said. “And you are single.”

  “What are you doing, babe?”

  I felt as if I’d crushed a fluffy chick, ground it into the pavement with my heel. “It’s a very nice place. It’s spacious, and I guess it’s well located. I just thought your chances of meeting someone might be greater if you lived in the city, but maybe I’m wrong.”

  “Listen, babe, you got me to move, but you can’t stop me from wanting you to change your mind.”

  I tugged on the passenger door. “The condo is lovely, Harley. I need to go home.”

  “Can we talk about this at lunch?”

  “Unlock the door,” I said. “Please. I can’t keep going through this.”

  “I’m taking it,” he said.

  “Really?”

  As soon as Harley said yes, a pleasant feeling descended, a belief that as long as we didn’t live together, we could be friends. Maybe I could remain in his sons’ lives. No, that wouldn’t happen, since I’d never had the chance to be in their lives to begin with.

  All that mattered was that Harley had found a luxurious condo in a town he knew well, once home of industrialists, and now where their scions lived. He could golf with the men. , date the women. Having lunch with him seemed like a kind gesture, and so when we were ensconced in our turquoise leatherette booth, our orders placed, I relaxed and began to tell him about clients who were opening a restaurant in Lawrenceville and wanted a different take on everything, including the oyster pail, that iconic container, best known for Chinese takeout. The oyster pail, which really had been used for shucked oysters in the early twentieth century, was a perfect object. Beautiful and functional. “You can play around with the color. You can change the shape. Use eco-friendly material. But the original is so great it’s hard to figure out how to make it better. Or why. Or…”

  I paused, aware of the din in the restaurant, the families squeezed into other booths, mothers, grandmothers, babies banging their high chair tables. Happy noise, family noise, playful conversation.

  Harley looked up from his cell phone. “Is something wrong, hon?”

  “No,” I said. It was good that Harley had no interest in what I was saying. It was very good. It was, I thought, exactly what I needed.

  

  When I saw the car with West Virginia plates parked outside my house, I thought of Harley’s brother, his too-tight hug and terrifying dog. What a relief I’d never have to see them again. Harley was standing on the sidewalk. I unlocked my door and waved to assure him I was safe.

  Byron was the first person I saw when I opened the door. Then that Scotty, rushing toward me, barking, barking until their daughter took his collar and pulled him away. People were everywhere — squeezed onto the couch, perched in chairs and on the hassock, studying photos on the mantel. Les by the fireplace. I took in this improbable still life, these people and a dozen shadowy others, frame by frame, in a dense, slow-mo manner, stumbling for a millisecond on my mother and Byron’s wife, and thinking, they know each other?

  Then Mindy came forward, as womanly in her forties as she was when we were twelve, bosom heaving as her arms rose like a conductor’s. A symphony of people called, “Surprise!” My mother was here from Tel Aviv. My mother, old and unkempt, in a suit with big, drooping shoulders and wine-colored pumps. I crossed the room, dizzied, wishing I’d washed my hair, chosen a nicer dress, hadn’t wolfed an entire sandwich, laughing, covering my face, confused. It was not my birthday; Harley was not my boyfriend; my mother was not the mother of my comedy routines, who took her husband everywhere, as if he were a favorite pocketbook, but the mother I had neglected, with her dreadful history, about which I knew nothing and everything.

  I kneeled beside her chair and said, “Mom!” so she might turn to me. “Ma!”

  My mother regarded me in a blank, uncomprehending way that frightened and nullified me and brought to mind my father, toothless, half blind, leaning across the table. Wasn’t there another one?

  I leaned over to kiss her cheek, and she shivered, sai
d, “Woooo,” as if my lips were blocks of ice, and turned to Harley’s pretty, golden-haired sister-in-law. “Her friend—why did he fly me here?”

  “Harley?” said Emmy, the sister-in-law, whose real name was Martha Jane. “For Roxanne’s birthday.”

  “Ach, who needs birthdays?” my mother said to her. “When you get to be my age, it’s better to forget.”

  Emmy laughed and said, “Oh, I know just what you mean.” The Scottie rose. She pressed him back onto her lap.

  “Mom!” I said.

  My mother said to Emmy, “From my world, they’re all dead. Everyone who worked under me when I was at Bell Laboratories. Even the labs are gone, which is a disgrace. Nothing has come along to replace it. No institute anywhere in the world supports basic research the way we did. It’s all gone. I’m the only one left. I’ve outlived all the others.”

  “Now that’s something,” said Emmy.

  I touched my mother’s arm, and she withdrew with a start.

  Laughter at my door. More guests arriving. At least I didn’t pinch her—proof I was a grown-up.

  My knees hurt. I shifted my position. My mother pointed to Emmy. “Who’s she?”

  “How rude of me. Mom, Leona, this is Martha Jane…”

  “Harley’s sister-in-law. You can call me Emmy. Everyone does.”

  “Harley?” asked my mother. She’d let her hair go and the riot of color was disturbing—white, brown, black.

  “I’ll get him,” I said.

  I rose quickly, startling the Scottie, who stood upright on Emmy’s skirt, trying to keep his balance in the hills and indentations formed by her clenched knees. He growled at me as I passed, and Emmy said, “Oh Mackie, stop,” without conviction.

  I worked my way through the rooms, rising on my toes to kiss each guest. What to say to Mindy when I’d claimed that Harley and I had broken up for good? When I’d told Les—“It’s really over, splitsville, fini!”—he’d had that dubious uh huh look on his face in the office and now in my house.