The Doctor's Wife

by Elizabeth Brundage

  Claudia took her time walking over, giving them the opportunity to scrutinize her incredible body. Annie had overheard two of the male professors talking about her in less than professional terms. “Pool’s closed in three minutes, Professor Haas,” the girl said. “Team practice.”

  “We’ll only be a minute. Come over here, we need a referee.” He grabbed her ankles with authority, making the girl stand near the edge of the pool. If it had been her, Annie would have been annoyed, but Claudia seemed unruffled.

  “Okay, okay, get ready,” Claudia said, yawning.

  Simon smiled at Annie. “Go ahead, Claudia, put your lips together and blow.”

  Claudia tugged on her whistle awkwardly. “On your mark.”

  Simon turned, his mouth wet and serious. Annie tried to concentrate, but her head was jumbled now with girlish thoughts, and then the whistle blew, and she was already behind. She hadn’t raced anyone since college, and it came to her that she didn’t miss it. Even in college she’d hated it. It had been her father who’d insisted she stay with it, and she had because she was that kind of daughter, she did what her father told her.

  Simon’s feet slipped out of sight and she knew she had already lost. She turned, shot back after him, but it was too late. She suddenly felt enervated, flailing through the water like a blind whale.

  “You weren’t concentrating,” he said when she’d reached the wall.

  It took her a moment to catch her breath. She looked at his face, unable to mold hers into an amiable expression. “I’ve never been very competitive,” she told him.

  “You’re feverishly competitive, Ms. Knowles.” He smiled, moving closer. “You could have won, we both know that.” He climbed out of the pool. “See you around, Professor.”

  He walked across the tiles, slapping five with Claudia before entering the men’s locker room. Annie shivered in the water. Maybe he was right: maybe she hadn’t been concentrating, maybe she’d psyched herself out. Even worse, maybe she hadn’t wanted to win. If she had won, she thought perversely, it might have turned him off.

  Disgusted with herself, she swam five furious laps, ignoring Claudia’s obnoxious whistle, then got out, apologizing profusely.

  “Hey, Professor Knowles,” Claudia said with a knowing smirk. “Better luck next time.”

  The locker room was crowded now with the girls from the crew team changing into their suits. They moved swiftly in their borrowed spaces, their manufactured cubicles of privacy, trying not to look at one another but looking just the same, always turning away with some mock gesture of humility. Annie walked to the showers naked, trying not to feel self-conscious. It was hard not to feel exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights, and every time she passed a mirror all she saw were flaws. Compared to the girls in the locker room she looked old. Frustrated with herself, she dressed quickly and hurried out to the parking lot. It had begun to rain. She spotted Simon Haas across the lot, closing the trunk of a vintage black Porsche. He nodded to her, his face ruddy with good health. She smiled and waved, then hurried into her wagon and started the engine, tuning in NPR. A moment later he was knocking on her window.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again.”

  “You’re not bothering me.”

  “Do you think you could give me a jump?”

  “What a thrilling proposition.” She smiled a little wickedly. “Unfortunately, my husband keeps the cables in his car.”

  “You wouldn’t know what to do with a pair of jumper cables, would you?”

  “I’m very resourceful under pressure.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” He squinted around the parking lot, looking for somebody else.

  “I could drive you home if you want.”

  “I don’t want to put you out. I’m out on Crooked Lake.”

  “It’s no trouble.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Get in.”

  She shoved a stack of library books off the passenger seat and onto the floor, into the ever-present pile of trash: old napkins, fast-food receptacles, gum wrappers, Popsicle sticks, wrecked and twisted toys. “I’m sorry about this mess,” she said. It’s only my life.

  “Oh, I’m used to a good pile of shit. I feel right at home, actually.” He grinned, climbing in and making himself comfortable. His boots, she noticed, were untied, caked with mud, reminding her of Henry. The children’s schedule rushed through her head: Christina would be meeting them at the bus; Henry had his violin lesson at five o’clock with Mrs. Keller, his saturnine teacher, who came to the house.

  “That’s quite a car you drive,” she said.

  “It’s a hell of a car.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “A rather sensitive disposition,” he said. “Moody is a better word. Very pretty but not very practical. Most pretty things aren’t, as it turns out. I take it you’re of the practical sort, hence the Volvo?”

  “You mean very practical but not very pretty?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.”

  “It’s true, actually.”

  “I mean the car. You drive safe. You’re a careful person.”

  She smiled. “Boring, isn’t it?”

  “There are worse dilemmas.”

  “It happened when I had kids,” she told him, biting into an apple.

  “Like this bolt of lightning and suddenly I’m my mother.” She backed out of her spot onto the driveway and drove down to the main road. The rain fell hard on the windshield and she switched her wipers on.

  “At least you’re not wearing galoshes like my mother. Remember those? Galoshes,” he repeated. “What a delicious word.”

  “You’re thinking goulash. Maybe you’re hungry.”

  “I’m always hungry.” He smiled at her. “But not for goulash.”

  “Does your wife make you goulash?”

  “No, my wife does not make me goulash. She makes substantial wholesome meals for people I don’t know. Things like roast pork and sweet potatoes.”

  “People you don’t know?”

  “She’s active in her church.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “She’s incredibly devout, my wife. Her father was religious. Catholic. Very intense. I thought she’d grow out of it, but it’s gotten worse. Much worse. She’s gotten involved with one of those New Age churches out in High Meadow. You know, they all sit around grooving about Jesus.”

  “People don’t generally grow out of their devotion.”

  “I’ve come to that conclusion.”

  “That must be hard, being someone like you.” Her voice trailed off awkwardly. She felt herself blushing.

  “Married to someone like her,” he finished her sentence. “It’s a fucking pain in the ass. Take the next left, I’ll show you a shortcut.”

  Annie turned down a dirt road that ran along the lake. The rain had made it muddy, and the trees hung down heavily, brushing the roof of the car.

  “I looked you up in the handbook,” he said. “I didn’t know you went to Smith.”

  “A predictable choice after Miss Porter’s.” She saw that the name didn’t register. “A boarding school for girls. In Connecticut.”

  “Oh, well.”

  “My parents were very into that sort of thing while they were off gallivanting.”

  “Gallivanting, what a concept.”

  “I was a bit of a rebel, actually.”

  “Ah yes, little Annie, baking hash brownies and reading Marx.”

  She laughed because it was true. “Well, I have to admit I didn’t really get Marx. I hail from a long line of guileless capitalists. I can remember throwing that little red book out the window.”

  “Maybe you were eating too many of those brownies.”

  “Now you’re getting personal.”

  “You’re somebody I’d like to get personal with.”

  “I don’t know how to respond to that comment.”

  “You don’t have to respond to it,” he said softly. “Not right away, anyway.”

 
; She watched his face, the rain shadows dripping down it like tears. “Where did you grow up?”

  “You don’t want to know about my measly past.”

  “Maybe you don’t want to tell me.”

  “Maybe I don’t. The mystery is infinitely more interesting.”

  “Oh, yes, you have quite the reputation.”

  He smiled a little bashfully. “It’s a very small pond here at St. Catherine’s, Ms. Knowles.”

  “And you’re a very big fish. And a very good swimmer I might add. You owe me a rematch.”

  “I thought you weren’t competitive.”

  “I’m not. Not really.”

  “Just slightly aggressive.”

  “Just slightly.”

  “A dangerous woman.”

  “No,” she said softly. “Not dangerous. Hardly.” There was an awkward pause; she didn’t want it to be awkward. “I sure do miss those brownies, though.”

  “I’m sure you can dig up the recipe. In fact, now that we’re on the subject . . .” He started digging through his pockets and produced a joint. “Ah, yes.” He lit it, took a drag, and passed it to her.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I haven’t smoked pot in years. Years!”

  “What better excuse?”

  “I have kids!”

  “All the more reason.” He took another drag. “A gift from one of my students. Lovely girl. Here, take a hit. It’s not going to kill you.”

  She watched him sucking on the joint and reconsidered. Maybe one hit wouldn’t hurt. “All right.” He gave it to her and she dragged on the cigarette. It crackled and sent little sparks down to her thighs. Within seconds she felt her body vibrating, humming. I’m humming, she thought. Like the strings of a harp. “My husband would kill me.”

  “I wouldn’t tell him, then,” he said a bit deviously. “I imagine he’d be somewhat suspicious.”

  She laughed suddenly, a little excited by the idea. “And your wife. What would she think?”

  “My wife is always suspicious.”

  The rain fell harder now and she suddenly became conscious of the wheel in her hands, the sound of the road, the tires, the movement of the trees. The trees seemed to be crying out. The branches groped the sky like blind zealots. Simon’s directions became elaborate, sending them down a labyrinth of dirt roads. I’m stoned, she thought. I’m totally wasted. She hoped she wouldn’t get lost on her way out.

  “We’re just down there,” he said. “That house there, through the trees.”

  The house sat up on a hill overlooking the lake. You had to take a narrow dirt road to get up to it. The road was rutted and muddy, and the Volvo bucked and rocked over the bumps. At last the house appeared, looming over the sprawling trees. It was a rambling old place, in surprising disrepair. The paint had chipped and several of the shutters had come off their bottom hinges and hung crookedly, giving the house a haphazard gloom. A light shone in a window on the second floor. Annie parked near the steps to the porch. The roof had been strung with a collection of chimes of all shapes and sizes and colors, all of which were twisting in the wind, producing, in Annie’s state of mind, an eerie cacophony. Annie could see the lake, which looked black and ominous in the growing dark. Within seconds a pack of Great Danes had surrounded the car and were barking savagely. “My goodness,” Annie said.

  “Don’t mind them, it’s all bark. They’re actually very gentle animals, but most people don’t know it. They’ve seen too many James Bond movies.”

  “They don’t look gentle.”

  “That’s the whole point, of course.” He gathered his things together, a canvas rucksack stuffed with papers. “There was a time, a few years ago, when we needed the protection. My wife, you see, on account of the paintings. We were hounded, no pun intended.” He smiled at the memory. “We’ve actually grown attached to the beasts. But that will happen, I suppose. In time, we all get attached.”

  “It’s a beautiful house.”

  “Was a beautiful house, a century ago. Come in for a minute, meet my wife.”

  “I should use your phone. My cell phone’s dead.”

  Annie followed him up the steps onto the porch, the dogs sniffing at her heels. She noticed that the paint on the porch floor had been scratched to shreds. To her surprise, she felt anxious about meeting Lydia Haas, as if something had already been established between her and Simon that his wife would no doubt discover. When they entered the house, it was quiet. His wife was not at home.

  “Lydia’s not here,” he told her, as though reading her thoughts. “Come, we’ll go in here.” Simon led her into the sparsely decorated living room, where a fire smoldered in the fireplace. There was a Chippendale sofa, covered in a faded salmon-colored velvet, and a leather wing chair, and an impressive antique secretary cluttered with sheets of stationery, letters in the process of being written. The worn Oriental carpet looked dirty, covered with dog hair and ash from the fireplace, and the cold room smelled of smoke and ash. Simon brought in some wood and dumped it on the fire and the flames sprang up at once, casting an orange glow about the room.

  “It’s a lovely room,” she said. “The fire feels good.”

  “It’s damp out. I see it’s raining again. You may as well wait till it lets up. Have a drink with me.”

  “All right. I’ll just call home.” She followed him back into the foyer, then through another door to the kitchen. It was a bright, sprawling space, cluttered with the disarray of cooking. She smelled something baking in the oven and watched as he opened it and peered inside.

  “Smells good,” Annie said, looking for the phone.

  “Apple pie. We must be having company—she doesn’t cook like this for me.”

  “You don’t sound terribly excited.”

  “No. In fact, I dread these dinners of hers. People from her church. They sit around discussing psalms, for Christ’s sake. I can’t think of anything more depressing.”

  “And what do you do while they’re discussing psalms?”

  “What else? Drink. Telephone’s over here.”

  Annie went to the phone and dialed her number. Rosie picked up. “Hello?” Annie could hear Henry practicing his violin in the background, the screeching sound of the strings.

  “Hi, honey.”

  “Mommy! When are you coming home?”

  “Soon. Can I talk to Christina?”

  A moment later, Christina came on. Annie explained how she’d driven Haas home. “I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

  “Did you say Haas?” Christina blurted. “The art professor?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Watch out, Mrs. Knowles. He’s a letch!”