Portrait of a Married Woman

by Sally Mandel

  “Look, you got Robin all flustered,” Stephen said. But Maggie could see he was delighted.

  “You still going out with that detective?” Stephen asked Hilary with his eyes on Robin’s exposed cards. He threw the ten of hearts on the table. “When in doubt, trump.”

  “Now and then,” Hilary said. “He’s too nice.”

  “We’ve been analyzing Hilary’s affinity for nasty men,” Phyllis explained.

  “We have?” Hilary asked.

  “But we decided that men are hopeless and she should try a woman for a change.”

  “I’ve always held to that philosophy myself,” Stephen said.

  “A devotee,” Phyllis said.

  The game ended with Phyllis down one. Stephen grinned at Hilary. “That was fun.”

  He made no move to rise, but Robin stood in the middle of the living room and announced in an impossibly cheery voice, “Well, let’s call it a night for this time.”

  Phyllis laughed. “We’re being thrown out.”

  “I’ll get raincoats,” Maggie said.

  Stephen took Hilary’s arm. “I’d like to play again sometime.”

  “Any time, dear,” Phyllis said. “You liven up our little group.”

  “How are you going to get home from here?” Stephen asked Hilary. “Don’t you live down in SoHo?”

  “Cab,” Hilary said. “It’s not bad at this hour, right down the East River Drive.”

  As Hilary arched her back to put her arms into her raincoat sleeves, Stephen’s eyes fixed on her breasts.

  “Coming, Mags?” Phyllis asked.

  “Yes,” Maggie answered. But in the elevator, she wished she had stayed behind with Robin for a little while. The sexual tension in the plummeting rectangle was so suffocating that despite the late hour, she walked home, alone, and let the cool summer rain cleanse her.

  Chapter 8

  Maggie sat on her bed and savored the thought of art class, where she was due in less than an hour. Her anticipation was so tangible it felt like a delicious taste in her mouth, a long-awaited treat that was sweet and satisfying after weeks of self-denial. Class could hardly live up to this, she thought; she might as well enjoy her pleasure as long as possible. Maybe tonight she would find that she could not draw a convincing line after all. Maybe David Golden would not be there. She took a long, leisurely bath, then pulled on a pair of old corduroy jeans and a cotton sweater. No dressing up for David; he would see the real Maggie. She was late now. She grabbed her handbag, dashed to the front door, and caught a glimpse of herself in the front-hall mirror. She laughed at the flushed, youthful woman she saw there. It had been a long time since Maggie had dashed anywhere. Hurried, hustled, rushed, yes. But never dashed.

  Class was already in full swing. Maggie caught her breath with gratitude when she saw the empty easel beside David. She took her place and waited for him to say hello, but he only studied her quietly. His features were softer than she had remembered.

  “I’m sorry I was such a fool on the telephone,” Maggie said. Then she laughed. “Oh God, I’m doing it again.” He just continued watching her with a half-smile on his face. “Help me out, will you?”

  “How?”

  “Say something.”

  “All right.” He paused thoughtfully. “I like the way you look.”

  “That wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I meant.”

  Maggie glanced at the model sitting at the far end of the studio. She was a middle-aged, plump, coarse-looking woman. Her breasts were pendulous with large dark nipples, and her legs were tracked with varicose veins. But she had extraordinary hands. She held them in her lap tenderly as if they were a pair of precious white birds. Maggie immediately thought of the Stieglitz photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe’s hands. She picked up her charcoal and began to sketch, losing herself in this intriguing display of homeliness and beauty. After twenty minutes, she stretched and stood back to look at what she had done. David was standing beside her.

  “Georgia O’Keeffe,” he said. She stared at him. David went back to work, but Maggie found it difficult to concentrate after that. She imagined an invisible current transmitting her thoughts to the silent figure standing a few feet away.

  At the end of class, Eliza Austin inspected Maggie’s work, made a comment about tension, and suggested some exercises in quick line drawing to loosen her up. Maggie could see David preparing to leave as Eliza continued. He was going to get away before she could speak with him. She could barely breathe from panic, and here was Eliza Austin telling her to close her eyes and let her hand “sweep the page, sweep effortlessly, no, quickly, don’t stop …” Eliza was patient—endlessly, agonizingly patient. When Maggie opened her eyes again, the model had dressed and David was gone. Panic turned to grief.

  “You’re very gifted,” Eliza said.

  “Thank you,” Maggie replied, thinking wryly what those words could have meant ordinarily. He must be out of the building by now. Finally Eliza said good night. Maggie tried not to hurry as she left the room, but when she saw the crowd at the elevator and noted that David was not among them, she bolted for the exit sign at the end of the hall. She took the stairs two at a time, dashing again.

  She saw him on Central Park West more than a block away. He had a loose stride, legs slightly bowed, arms cocked and swinging. Maggie started running. A tiny voice in her head sang: What are you doing? What are you doing? But it was easy to ignore under the rasping noise of her respiration.

  “David!” She caught him at Eighty-first Street, just north of the Museum of Natural History. He spun around and reached out to steady her with both hands on her arms. “Let me buy you coffee!” she shouted.

  “All right,” he said.

  “I’m a very reserved person,” she explained, panting.

  They both laughed and began walking toward Columbus Avenue. After a moment he said, “Your art’s not reserved.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Shouldn’t be.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “It shouldn’t.”

  It was dark now, but the soft summer dark that is still a little gray around the edges. In unison, they both said, “You are what you paint.” They stopped in their tracks and gaped at one another.

  Maggie whispered, almost dismayed, “Does this often happen to you?”

  “No.”

  “With anybody?”

  “No.”

  “What’s going on?”

  He shook his head and drew her arm through his.

  In the coffee shop, Maggie ordered a glass of juice. Her central nervous system was far too agitated to cope with caffeine.

  “How long has it been since you worked?” David asked.

  “Years. Close to ten, I guess.”

  “I find that difficult to understand.”

  “What’s that accent?” Maggie asked.

  “Leftover New Orleans.”

  “New Orleans,” Maggie said. “What a wonderful place to be from.”

  “Not if you’re a sculptor.”

  “Do you have a family there?”

  “Parents. A brother.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “My father has a dry-goods store. He feels the same way about yard goods as I do about stone.”

  “What does he think about what you do?”

  “I suspect he’s decided I’m homosexual.”

  “Is that supposed to follow?”

  “Artists, you know. But he’s not unpleasant about it, just regards me with a kind of bewildered disappointment.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Very upstanding. Plays golf on Sundays, drives a station wagon. He works with my dad, but they don’t get on. Robert wants to bring in computers for inventory, and my father would rather check things off on his yellow legal pad.”

  “Does your mother work too?”

  David held up his hand with a smile.

  “I’
m grilling you. Sorry,” Maggie said.

  “I’ll tell you my entire life story if you can stand it. Sometime.”

  Sometime, Maggie thought. That meant there would be another time. She felt the sudden sweet taste in her mouth again. “Were you always a sculptor?” Maggie blurted, then laughed at herself. But he was patient.

  “I tried to be a painter at first. But I guess I always liked messing around with the materials more than making images. Now tell me about you. When did you begin?”

  She sighed. “Oh, God, I was making pictures before I had words. I think it was my way of being safe in a scary world.” She shifted her legs under the table and accidentally nudged his foot with hers. She wondered what his bare toes looked like. “I used to have this dream,” she continued. “There was a hideous monster, a massive shadowy thing with huge sharp teeth and claws. He would trap me in a room. I was terrified and desperate, but then I would put my finger on the wall and draw, no crayon or anything, just my finger. I would make this even scarier monster, even bigger, and it would come to life and destroy the one that was trying to kill me.” He was watching her over the rim of his cup. She shook her head and smiled. “I haven’t thought of that in a long, long time. And it wasn’t only fear. All kinds of feelings. Like anxiety. When my father had to go to the hospital for an operation, I built him a bed tray. I guess if I could build something, make something with my hands, I felt as though everything would be all right. I had some kind of control.”

  “Then what’s kept you safe these past ten years?”

  Maggie had no answer. She looked away. There was a fly walking up the fake wood paneling beside David’s left ear. How simple to be a fly, she thought. Buzz, eat, an anonymous coupling now and again. A fly does not concern itself with the flyswatter, poised and vibrating, ready to slice through the air and obliterate.

  “Carving is my adventure,” David was saying. “A wild exploration. Pushing something past its limits, almost further than I think it can go. There can be no preconceived notions about how it’s going to come out, that’s a kind of death. Allowing the inconceivable to happen is what’s crucial. Sometimes it means being very brave. Do you know what I mean?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me about your husband.”

  The fly did a little hopping dance on the sugar bowl, then veered off for the kitchen. “He’s a fine man. A lawyer. Good at what he does, very ethical. We have two wonderful children.” The sound of the word we reverberated in Maggie’s head. We, we, we … wee, wee, all the way home. David was listening to it too. She saw the sudden pain in his face. “Do you know how long it’s been since I wore these jeans?” Maggie asked suddenly.

  “What do you usually wear?”

  “Dresses, skirts, things to …” She trailed off.

  “To what?”

  “To get him to tell me I’m pretty,” she whispered. “I’m such a fool.”

  David took her hand, flattened her fingers against the table, and traced them on the cool marble surface. “I want you to model for me,” he said.

  “I’ve got to go home.”

  “Please don’t,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Let me see you tomorrow.”

  “No. I don’t know.” She wanted to kiss his mouth.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  She looked at him astonished. “I don’t know how you do that. It’s an invasion of privacy.”

  “See me.”

  “David, I’m so fucking respectable. I don’t ever say ‘fucking.’ ”

  “Let me call you.”

  Maggie examined the check dropped on their table by a weary waiter long ago. She put some money beside her saucer and stood up. After a moment, David followed her out.

  “Look, I’m getting into a cab,” she said outside in a trembling voice. “Just walk away from me now. Please.”

  He nodded, put his hand against her cheek for a moment, and walked off. He turned to watch as a cab pulled up.

  The waiter inside the coffee shop observed from the front window. He shook his head morosely. No money to be made off people like that. Lovers never eat much.

  Chapter 9

  “Mom, can I come in?” Fred looked pale and solemn outside the bedroom door.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” Maggie asked.

  “I’ve got stage fright.”

  Maggie smiled. “Me too.” She smoothed the collar of his blazer. “You look marvelous. Where’s Zach?”

  “Watching TV.” Fred sat down on the edge of the bed. “What if she blows it?”

  “She won’t. She was great last time and she’ll be great tonight.”

  Our Town had made such a hit in March that a special end-of-school performance had been scheduled.

  “I think I’m gonna puke.”

  “Maybe we ought to take airsick bags.”

  Matthew emerged from the bathroom wearing a towel around his waist. “You’ve got two different-color socks on, Frederick.”

  “Leave it to you to notice, Dad,” Fred said. The door clicked shut behind him.

  “Just exercising my acute powers of observation. Maybe we should all go out somewhere afterward to celebrate.” Matthew shed the towel and slipped into his underwear. His body appeared exactly as it had eighteen years ago, except perhaps his chest was slightly hairier.

  “You’re feeling festive.”

  He grabbed Maggie by the shoulders and wrestled her to the bed. “My daughter’s a star. Shouldn’t I feel festive?”

  “Hey, cut it out, Matt, you’re hurting me.”

  He rolled her over on her stomach and pinned her arms behind her back. “Gotcha,” he exulted.

  For a man so trim, it was surprising how heavy his body felt. Maggie knew that no amount of struggling would free her from the grip of those sinewy arms. She lay very still.

  “No fight in the old girl tonight?”

  “I’ve told you I don’t like being manhandled,” Maggie murmured with her face pressed into the mattress.

  Matthew whacked her rear end playfully and stood up. He sighed. “I don’t know. You used to be a good sport. How come Zach’s coming along? Shouldn’t this be a family affair?”

  Maggie rose slowly. The folds of her bathrobe fell open, revealing her bare breasts. She snatched it closed around her and belted it. “Phyllis and Stephen have a bar mitzvah in Pennsylvania,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Kid’s here more than he’s at home.”

  While Matthew’s back was turned, she plucked her clothes from the closet and slipped into the bathroom. It was still warm and steamy from Matthew’s shower. Her slip stuck to her thighs, but at least she was alone.

  There was a time when Maggie was able to laugh at Matthew’s roughhousing. Even enjoy it. She tumbled and wrestled with him, never mind the bruises. But lately she had begun to feel like prey, never knowing when Matthew might spring from behind a closet door to grab her bottom. She thought of David Golden’s hand, gentle against her cheek, and suddenly began to cry in deep twisting gasps. She turned the cold water on full blast, grabbed her towel off the rack, and buried her head in it. But after a few moments, the sound of all that water being wasted induced such guilt that she quickly turned off the faucet and pulled herself together.

  When they reached the auditorium, Fred, Matthew, and Zachary found seats while Maggie went to deliver Susan’s necklace, left behind in the last-minute rush. Years ago, Maggie had bought her a chain with a tiny gold shamrock. Susan swore it was insurance against forgetting her lines.

  Backstage, costumed performers rushed about, their faces under heavy makeup hinting at features familiar to Maggie since Susan’s kindergarten days. Maggie had fed them snacks, patched wounds with hand-decorated Band-Aids, comforted them on their first sleepovers, and had transported the pudgy actress playing Mrs. Gibbs all the way across town at two A.M. when severe homesickness s
truck.

  Maggie edged her way through the circus to a long mirror where Susan sat applying final touches to her mouth. Her costume rendered her nearly unrecognizable, but Susan’s transformation penetrated beneath the makeup and mascara. She gave Maggie a remote smile.

  “Thanks, Mom. Can you put it on for me? My hands are all grease.” The New England accent had become expert.

  Maggie closed the clasp around Susan’s slim neck. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. But I can’t talk now, you know?”

  Maggie nodded, bent down for a quick kiss, and left. On her way out, she heard the director admonishing some other interloper: “No, you mustn’t disturb Susan now, not before a performance.”

  Maggie took a seat between Fred and Matthew and wondered where her child had disappeared to inside that quiet, contained figure at the mirror. “I thought it would be easier this time,” she whispered to Matthew.

  “She’ll be fine,” he said.

  “Fred, you all right?”

  “Sure, I popped ten ‘ludes in the boys’ room.”

  The houselights dimmed. Maggie’s heart began to thunder. She grasped Fred’s hand, which was as cold and damp as her own.

  “Don’t be nervous, Mrs. Hollander,” Zachary said, leaning around Fred. “Sue can handle it.”

  Susan appeared alone onstage, wearing a felt hat, pipe in hand. She walked slowly, comfortably, like a man taking a stroll on a Sunday evening.

  “This play is called Our Town,” she began. “It was written by Thornton Wilder …”

  Maggie let out a long breath and settled down. The first time she had watched Susan perform as the Stage Manager, Maggie could barely concentrate on the play. Every stammer, every pause, sent trickles of sweat running down her sides. Tonight she was determined to absorb the performance. It was apparent that Susan was in full control. No matter that Mrs. Gibbs shouted every line, that Emily Webb was saccharine, that poor George kept anticipating his cues. Susan maintained her composure. At one point, George Gibbs stood in panicked silence with eyes rolling wildly as if he might encounter his lines etched in the air somewhere above his head. Susan quietly folded her arms and fed him the words, sotto voce, but loud enough for Maggie to note that even when prompting a fellow actor, the New Hampshire accent remained intact. “Mr. Morgan, I’ll have to go home …” Susan prodded George, the “Morgan” coming out “Mawg’n.” Maggie glanced at Matthew, but he was scribbling on a small pad: Ferris v. Smith, 1978, followed by three question marks.