Mrs. White

by Margaret Tracy

  As she spoke, Mrs. White’s face turned a red so dark, it approached purple. Cornell took out his pipe and chomped on it to keep from smiling.

  “I only thought maybe you would know of some—trick,” she went on. “Something that would reassure someone like this. Something, you know, that doesn’t leave any room for this terrible—this terrible doubt. It’s—that’s what it is—it’s the not knowing, you see.”

  Cornell thought. He looked around the neat, bright kitchen with its paisley potholders and the samplers on the wall. Good old Paul, he thought. Loving husband and model father. The great American situation-comedy family. Welcome to reality.

  “You think he’s a nice guy?” Cornell asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Mrs. White was adamant. “The nicest.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he could not keep from saying. “That’s the way it always is. The old suburban morality. Wife, kids, dog, and chippie.”

  Mrs. White’s shame turned to sadness. Her red face grew pale.

  “They don’t have a dog,” she said miserably.

  Cornell shut himself up. He looked down at Mrs. White’s weary hands with the upstanding veins, the short, chipped nails, the rough patches of callus. What’s she worth? he thought. What’s a family worth? Because she’s the mainstay, she’s everything here. And she’s the one who’s really getting screwed.

  “There are no rules about it,” he said gently. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe she’s just being silly, like you said.”

  “Maybe,” she answered, disconsolate now. “But … she would be such an easy girl to fool.”

  Cornell watched as she teased a cigarette butt in the ashtray. He pulled his chair a little closer to her.

  “Believe me,” he said, “if there were something going on, she’d know about it by now.”

  “But how?” said Mrs. White, urgently now. “How would she know?”

  Cornell thought for a minute, looking for the words. “Because,” he said slowly. “A man can’t live a lie. Not completely. Not forever. Not without being caught.” Mrs. White looked unconvinced. Cornell sighed and took another stab at it. “Believe me,” he said. “I know.”

  She looked at him.

  “I know,” he repeated. “Eventually, you give yourself away. You leave something. A clue. There’s always—somewhere, there’s always a clue.”

  Mrs. White was still unsure. “But what if—what if she weren’t looking for it? What if she weren’t looking for the clue? What if she didn’t want to see the clue, even if it was there, and she kept ignoring it, kept pushing it away.”

  “Trust me,” he said almost sadly. “She would see it. Eventually, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, it would be there. She would search it out in spite of herself. A man just can’t live a lie forever. He’ll always leave a clue.”

  The two were quiet for a long moment.

  “A clue,” Mrs. White said then.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  Mrs. White seemed to come back from far away. She blinked once and tried to smile. “I’ll—I’ll tell my friend what you said.”

  Cornell smiled too. He felt oddly close to her. “Good,” he said.

  “A man can’t live a lie.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not in everything. Not after so many years. It couldn’t just all be a lie.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  For a long time after Cornell left, Mrs. White sat silently at the kitchen table. She stared at the tree branches, blossoming into green now, which hung within her view outside the window above the sink. At first, as she sat there, she felt consoled by her talk with the artist. Surely, if Paul were cheating on her, she would know. Surely, as Cornell had said, there’d be some clue.

  Her fingers reached out and fiddled absently with one corner of the pound cake. Bits of it crumpled off and she rolled them between her fingers into small, soft balls.

  But then, if Paul had lied about working late, wasn’t that a clue? Was that the sort of clue that Cornell had meant?

  Her stomach began to feel sour. She threw the cake crumbs down on the plate. It was horrible—it was worse than anything—not to know. To be sure it was all right one moment, and then to be sure it was all wrong the next. It would be, she thought, less frustrating even to be sure of the worst.

  Or maybe not. Paul was her life. If he were having an affair, if she knew it for sure, what would she do then? How would she live with it?

  What would she do then?

  Heavily, Mrs. White pushed up from the table and carried the cups and saucers to the sink. She began washing them, but before she was done, she turned off the water, went to the broom closet, and took out her vacuum cleaner. She began to vacuum the stairs and to chase the dust balls that had collected at the edges of the linoleum floor. She had done only half the job when she stepped on the vacuum button, turned the machine off and returned to the sink to finish her dishes.

  So it went, all the day. She would start a chore and stop it to pick up another, only to leave that one half finished. She took a trip to the store for lettuce and then a second for celery, not because she forgot it, but because she felt better in the car.

  She was glad when Mary came home. She brought Clara, her little friend, home with her, and Mrs. White gave them each a tumbler of milk and some chocolate chip cookies. With her cheek resting on her palm, she listened as they told her about how Mrs. Jenkins had played piano for them and yelled at Timothy Burke for laughing. She listened and she thought: What will I do then?

  The girls went up to the den to play with dolls and Mrs. White set about her chores again. She was somewhat more attentive now.

  Outside, as it grew late in the afternoon, the sky began to cloud over. It looked like rain. Still, the day stayed bright: the long days had begun.

  About five o’clock, Clara’s mother came to take her home and Mary settled before the TV. Junior came back—the beginning of a drizzle had forced him to end his ball game. He went into the den, too, and for once—largely because Mary wanted so much to be his friend—the two children agreed on a television show to watch and sat together quietly.

  It was at about that time that Mrs. White decided—casually decided—to change her clothes.

  She went into the master bedroom. It was the second largest room in the house, next to the kitchen, but none too big for all that. She had decorated it simply with a shag rug of light blue and aqua wallpaper. She’d hung a large gilt-framed mirror on the wall, and a few pictures of ducks and hunting dogs. The furnishings—a bedstead, a dresser, a lamp, and a chair—were ranged about at the greatest distances from each other the room would allow. The dresser had been her mother’s. It was of sturdy pine. Atop it, next to the stack of papers, was a picture of Paul and Joan on their wedding day.

  Mrs. White removed the old print dress she was wearing and stood before the mirror in her underwear. She did not stand before it very long. She went to the closet and removed a dress that she had made herself from a pattern she’d bought at The Yarn Barn. She didn’t wear it often because its lines were sleek and showy and the shiny fabric, of the same color as the wallpaper, gave it a formal look.

  She laid the dress carefully on the bed and put on a bathrobe. Then she went out of the bedroom and—quietly, almost stealthily—slipped into the bathroom. She shut the door behind her. She took a shower and washed her hair. Then she stood before the bathroom mirror and began to put on makeup. It generally took her fifteen minutes to put on her makeup in the morning. It took her half an hour now. Just as she finished, she heard Mary’s shout: “Daddy’s home.”

  Mrs. White rushed back into the bedroom and hurriedly slipped into the aqua dress. Patting her hair into place, she went downstairs to the kitchen.

  Paul, dressed in his dungaree work suit, paused inside the kitchen door to catch Mary in his arms and lift her up. He looked past the little girl’s red hair at his wife and let out a long, low wolf whistle.

  “Wow,” he said.
“What’s the occasion? Did I forget something?”

  “No,” said Mrs. White, turning away from him, blushing. “You didn’t forget anything.”

  Setting Mary down, Paul stepped forward. “So how come you’re all dressed up?” he said.

  Mrs. White went to the refrigerator and began removing the fixings for a pork chop dinner.

  “Because I felt like it, that’s why,” she said to the refrigerator door.

  As she straightened, Paul came up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her hair.

  “Well,” he said. “I like it.”

  His wife turned around, smiling. “Do you?” she said.

  He grinned down at her. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s nice.” He kissed her on the forehead and let her go, walking around her to the refrigerator door. “Any beer in here?”

  “Um-hm,” said Mrs. White. She moved to the range with her pork chops.

  Junior came sauntering downstairs.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said.

  “Hiya, champ,” said Paul.

  Junior took a desultory look around the kitchen.

  “Hey,” he said. “How come Mom’s all dolled up?” He glanced at his father. “You forget something?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  She thought the children would never go to bed. Mary wanted a glass of water. Then Mary had to go to the bathroom. Then, just as Mrs. White was getting ready to send Junior to bed, she heard Paul telling him he could stay up to watch the end of a Yankee game that had gone into extra innings. She paced impatiently in the hallway while the Yankees won.

  When, at last, she heard the door to Junior’s bedroom close, she went into the den to find her husband sitting sleepily on the sofa, watching a rerun of M*A*S*H. She walked to the TV, swishing a little behind, and snapped it off.

  She turned to Paul, who was blinking up at her in surprise.

  “I was watching that,” he said dully.

  Mrs. White cocked her head and approached him. She sat on the sofa so close to him, she was almost in his lap. She put her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him lightly on the ear. Slowly, she ran her lips up the side of his face. She let her hand go down his shirt, her fingers trailing languorously, until her palm was on his thigh.

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  Paul shifted a little uncomfortably, but then he turned and gave her a small kiss on the forehead.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “What’re you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Well, actually, I’m kind of tired,” he said. “I was kind of thinking of going to bed.”

  Mrs. White pressed her lips to her husband’s cheek again. “That’s kind of what I was thinking about too,” she told him.

  Paul grinned. “You’re kind of frisky tonight, aren’t you?”

  She grinned back at him and nuzzled even closer.

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  Paul cleared his throat and she gazed up at him. He had turned his face away and he was staring at the far corner of the wall.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He turned and she kissed him. She brought her lips down over his chin onto his chest. She brought her hand farther up his thigh.

  Then, suddenly sensing something, she pulled back and looked at him steadily.

  He was staring straight ahead, his eyes wide, as if he saw something—maybe on the television—that shocked, even terrified, him. His lips were pursed in a strange half smile, half kiss. Mrs. White looked down and saw that his hand lay on the sofa tensed, almost into a fist, as if he were holding on to an invisible object.

  “Paul?” she said again.

  He turned that dreadful look on her. His voice was a strange whisper, not like Paul at all.

  “You’re frisky tonight,” he murmured.

  Mrs. White smiled unsurely. “Paul, are—are you all right?” she asked.

  “You wanna play,” he whispered, lifting his chin slightly, widening his eyes even more. “You wanna play?” He raised the tense hand. “Come to Papa, and we’ll play.”

  Mrs. White relaxed, though the expression on her husband’s face didn’t change.

  “Teaser,” she said.

  She put her arms around his neck again.

  “Okay, Papa,” she said, “here I am. Let’s play.”

  She felt his hand on her back, running slowly up her back. She nuzzled her face deeper into his neck. His hand was at the zipper of her dress.

  “Wanna play?” he said.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  She felt him fiddling with the zipper for a moment, but then his hand moved upward to the back of her neck. She felt his flat, heavy finger press against the bone there.

  She pulled back from him, preparing to kiss him on the lips. Man and wife looked at each other and Paul blinked. He blinked heavily, as if waking from a dream.

  “Joan,” he said huskily.

  She moved toward him again.

  Without warning, he stood up from the sofa, nearly dumping her on the floor. She landed, feeling awkward and foolish, her hands propping her up on the sofa cushions.

  “What … Paul?” she said, turning to him as he moved to the door.

  Paul stared down at her. His eyes were hot, as if he were angry. She was about to tell him that she’d never seen him act this way before, but then she realized that he’d never seen her act this way before either. Maybe she’d done something wrong; maybe she’d offended him. She felt, at that moment, like a very stupid woman indeed.

  With his next words, Paul confirmed her feelings.

  “What are you acting like that for?” he said. “That’s not the way you act.”

  “I just thought …” Mrs. White began weakly.

  “That’s not the way you act,” said Paul hotly, softly, fiercely. “Why do you act that way?”

  “I just …” Mrs. White’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Why?” said Paul, and he walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Later, as Paul lay snoring in the double bed, Mrs. White sat on the edge in her aqua dress. His face in sleep seemed docile and vulnerable, like a child’s face. She could not reconcile it with the angry face of the man who had rebuffed her. The two faces were not the same, just as the faces of a happy husband and an adulterer were not the same.

  Her hands were folded in her lap. Her eyes were misty. Paul’s lies had changed everything, even her perception of their marriage as a whole. It made everything—all the events in all the years from the day of his first lie to the day of his second—seem ugly. But she knew they were not; she knew they were far from ugly. How could all those things be true and untrue simultaneously? The thought made her miserable.

  She peered through the darkness at the picture on the dresser. She couldn’t make out the images, only the vague shape of the frame. It didn’t matter though. She knew the details by heart. It was their wedding picture.…

  Paul had moved out of his parents’ house in September of Joan’s senior year. Just before Christmas, Joan dropped out of high school. They were married on New Year’s Day.

  Even now the details of that day were sharp in her mind. There was Paul, so handsome in the blue suit he had bought for the occasion. There was her white dress. There was her mother crying from the beginning of the day to its end. There was Paul’s uncle, long since dead, who was drunk during the service and who had to be shushed continually. And there was the cold. It must have been five below.

  It was a small service for the immediate family; there was a larger reception at Joan’s house for friends. Joan had asked Paul if they should invite Mike. Paul had said not to. He thought it would insult “the poor guy.” Joan did anyway. But Mike never even answered the invitation.

  Paul was jubilant all through the day. He felt none of the nervousness men are supposed to have at their weddings. He seemed honestly to welcome the event. People remarked on “the blushing bride and the grinning groom.”

  It was just the start of
so many wonderful days.

  There was the day Paul became an apprentice carpenter. After months of discontent with the construction job, it seemed a godsend. “In construction, you just work the machines, you might as well be a machine yourself,” he said. But carpentry belonged to one man and a tool.

  Paul was assistant to a man named Robinson. He was a rough, barrel-gutted man of sixty, who spoke in endless streams of obscenities and rarely bestowed a compliment on anyone, least of all Paul. Paul hated him at first. But, as the job continued, he grew to understand Robinson. He knew that his cantankerous attitude was all bluff and his crudeness just for show. When a compliment came from Robinson, Paul said, “you know it means something. He puts you off at first, but it’s for a reason. It’s to make you tough on yourself. To make you good.” Joan thought Robinson became more like a father to Paul than his own father was.

  “It’ll be a pain to leave him,” Paul said shyly. “I’ve gotten used to the old guy.”

  But Robinson was as unsentimental about this as he was about anything else. When the day came, he kicked Paul out as a mother bird does its young. Paul said he understood. But Joan thought that day she actually saw tears in his eyes.

  The day Paul started his own business he seemed to Joan a different man. He seemed instantly older and more mature. Looking at him, she thought that finding the right trade had been all-important for Paul. It gave him something to wake up for, something to come home from. It made him whole in some way. She thought it had changed a confused, angry boy in blue jeans into an adult. She had helped a little too, she thought.

  She could only compare Paul’s happiness on that day to her own on the day she finally had a child.

  They had tried so hard. They had tried everything. She tried pills and potions that made her wake up vomiting. She prayed and had Paul pray. They went to so many doctors, they had to borrow to pay the bills.

  At last, almost by accident, it happened. The infant boy, covered in slime, its tiny head dented, was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

  And she was not ecstatic alone. Paul was as happy as she. He had none of the misgivings or jealousy men supposedly have. He cradled the child so gently in his big arms. She had never felt so close to him as then.