Promises

by Belva Plain

  Margaret felt a strange disquiet, a harbinger of alarm. “If you want to tell me.”

  “He’s married.”

  “Oh?”

  Questioning this noncommittal reaction, Nina raised her eyebrows. And Margaret, shaking her head, said quietly, “I’m sorry, but I’m not happy about that.”

  “Why? He’s getting a divorce.”

  Now alarm had settled itself on Margaret’s chest; drawing breath, she felt the weight of it. Nevertheless, she spoke evenly.

  “Are you the cause of the divorce?”

  Nina laughed. “Heavens, no. They’ve been planning it for ages.”

  “Planning it? I don’t understand. Why the delay?”

  “Their son has had medical problems. They don’t want to upset him until he gets through some surgery.”

  “So they’re still living in the same house?”

  “Unfortunately for Keith, yes.”

  “I don’t like that, Nina. Really not.”

  “Why? It has nothing to do with me.”

  “You’re into your second year with him.”

  “Don’t you think I know that, Margaret?”

  Since Nina was becoming defensive, Margaret must be very reasonable, very mild.

  “Divorce, when both parties want it, doesn’t take that long, I think.”

  “I know that too. By this time next year we’ll be married.”

  “Then why not wait until he’s free before you commit—”

  At that Nina sat up straight to interrupt. “I should stop seeing him? Give him up? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “No. I didn’t say you should give him up. I only meant for a while, until he’s free. When a man still has a wife—how many children are there?”

  “Two.”

  “Ah, no, Nina. It’s wrong. You can do better than that. Traveling around with a man who has a wife and children at home—it’s not worthy of you.”

  Nina stared. “I positively don’t believe this! I didn’t think you’d be such a killjoy. I really expected that you’d rejoice with me, that you’d be glad I’m loved and I’m happy.”

  “I am glad you’re loved, and I want you to be happy. Can you doubt that about me. Me?”

  “Well, you’re not showing much gladness.”

  Margaret’s eyes met Nina’s and were held so long that she, reminded of the children’s game of “staring down,” had to turn away from that pair of angry eyes. It had not occurred to her that this was so serious a game.

  And she said gently, “I don’t like to think of you in a clandestine life, that’s all. You must have to go hiding about the city, careful not to be seen together. That’s ugly, Nina. If you really love each other, you can wait until you don’t need to hide, until there’s no harm in what you’re doing.”

  “Harm! What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about adultery.”

  “Margaret, this is 1992! That sort of stuff is a hundred years old.”

  “No, it’s more than two thousand years old.”

  With a mocking groan and a jangle of bracelets, Nina clapped her forehead. “I never knew you to be so saintly.”

  “You don’t have to be saintly to know right from wrong.”

  “I didn’t come home to hear a lecture,” Nina said.

  Aware now of the need to patch what was rapidly tearing apart, Margaret apologized. “Don’t be angry with me. I don’t mean to lecture. Be fair. You have to grant me the right to have an opinion, don’t you?”

  “All right, all right, I’m not angry. And you won’t be, either, once you meet Keith. He’s your type of man, for heaven’s sake! Intellectual, thoughtful, charming—and you’ll be charmed, I promise.”

  Giving Margaret a bright, forgiving smile, Nina got up and went to the mirror. There, leaning close to it, she examined herself, brushed her eyelashes, smoothed her hair, which did not need smoothing, and then, stepping back for a full-length view, frowned and adjusted the roll of her collar, which did not need adjusting. It seemed to Margaret that all these abrupt and finicky motions were nervous.…

  Quite suddenly, she was seeing something in Nina that she had not ever seen before. Nina was different. The change was subtle, hard to put into words, but it was there, and that man was the cause. She was sure of it, and she heard herself now accusing him: What have you done to our Nina, our girl? Maybe Adam had not been so stuffy after all, when he talked about the “fast track.”

  “Yes,” Nina repeated, “you’ll be charmed.”

  No, she would not be charmed. Whoever this man Keith might be, he was at this moment piling a dreadful worry on Margaret’s head. Whoever you are, I don’t like you, said Margaret’s inner voice.

  “I’ll tell you what. Some weekend this summer whenever Keith can get away, I’ll bring him here so you can meet him.”

  When he can “get away,” thought Margaret. From what? A wife and two kids? And she said it aloud.

  “Get away from a wife and two kids?”

  Nina gave a loud, incredulous laugh. “I see I’ve made a little bit of a mistake by confiding in you, haven’t I?”

  “If you want to look at it that way, although I don’t think so. Incidentally, do your bosses know?”

  “They are the only other people who do know, and they couldn’t care less.”

  “Of course. They don’t love you as I do. Why should they?”

  “They care. But they’re not as narrow-minded as you. Not many people are.”

  “Nina dear, please listen to me. You have to be careful where you give your trust. A man must earn your trust first. You never know whether—”

  “Good God, I never knew you to be so rigid, so—so unfeeling!”

  “And I never knew you to be dishonest.”

  “ ‘Dishonest’ you call me?”

  “Yes. I assume that Keith’s wife knows nothing about you. Isn’t that true?”

  “Well, really. What purpose would it serve to complicate matters? He wants to keep things as clean as possible. And incidentally, Margaret, I don’t like being told I’m dishonest.”

  “I don’t like having to say it, but it does seem to me that this whole affair is thievery.”

  “Thievery! We love each other, Keith and I. Don’t you remember anything about love? That one woman should talk to another the way you’re talking to me is horrible. It’s unbelievable.”

  “Is it? Listen to me. You call yourself a feminist. You talk about ‘sisterhood,’ about women helping each other to face the dominant male ‘enemy.’ God knows, I’ve heard enough of such talk from plenty of others besides you.”

  Margaret’s heart was hammering. She had risen to face Nina. They were confronting each other.

  “Where’s your loyalty to this ‘sister’? You don’t know the first thing about her, whether she even wants a divorce, or how she may be suffering, or her concerns about her children or—or anything. Sisterhood! What garbage! Taking each other’s husbands with no conscience at all. Tearing the roof down on a ‘sister’ and her children.”

  “That’s not true!” Nina shouted. “Keith’s miserable. He was miserable long before he met me. It’s her fault if she can’t hold her husband and make him happy. Her fault!”

  “Do lower your voice, please. They can hear you downstairs.”

  “You really, really make me sick,” Nina said, and she bent down to put on her shoes.

  “I can’t get over it. You, who went to New York and cut your way through that jungle, you, who were independent from the time you could walk and talk, allowing yourself to be so weak as to let a man lead you downhill by the nose, cajoling you.”

  “Maybe, maybe you never were in love. It sounds as if you don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “How can you say such a thing about Adam and me? You grew up in this house and this family. All you ever saw here was love. And everything I’m saying here is being said out of love. Adam would say the same if he were in this room now. We only want you not t
o make a mistake. This man—”

  “This man is the love of my life. He’s not a mistake.”

  “Women make mistakes for love, Nina. Believe me. They do. As of now you have no certainty. This could all come to nothing, and your heart break.”

  “I’m the judge of that, Margaret. Let me tell you, you’ve taken all the joy out of my day. What am I saying? Out of what’s been the happiest year of my life.” Nina refastened the clasp of her overnight case and thumped it down to the floor at her feet. “It’s going to take a long, long time for me to forget the things you’ve just said. If ever, Margaret. If ever.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Nina. We’ve expressed ourselves frankly, and that’s healthy. This anger will pass.”

  “Oh, do you think so? Well, I don’t.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Can’t I? I’ll tell you: As long as you feel this way about Keith, I’m not going to bring him here where he’s unwelcome. He’s worthy of more than that. And I feel unwelcome here myself. I’m getting out right now. There’s a late plane, but if I miss it, I’ll sit up all night at the airport till the first one leaves in the morning.”

  Margaret put out her hand, but Nina, defying her, brushed past it and went to the door.

  “I will leave quietly,” she said. “You needn’t worry about a scene.”

  It was possible from the top of the stairs to hear the sounds of departure: Nina’s bright-voiced explanation that she had really intended to stay only for the day and that she was needed back at work; Julie’s protest, Fred’s surprise, and Adam’s regrets. Then came the car sounds, the slammed door, the starter, and the motor dying away down the street.

  Trembling and sick, Margaret stood in the center of the bedroom. It was as if a storm had struck and left the house in devastation. On the news you saw pictures of people picking through ruins, searching and putting broken pieces together.… So it had been with the broken pieces of Nina’s mother’s poor life, the child Nina’s questions, the steady plausible answers designed to give no hurt or burden, and finally the grown-up Nina’s acceptance of these reasonable explanations.… But inevitably, somewhere in Jean’s mind then, and now in Margaret’s mind, there lingered, ever so faintly, the dread that Nina might go her mother’s way. And so this man, this Keith, loomed very darkly, like a warning.…

  * * *

  “Do you mean to say that you really believed her story about having planned to come just for the day?”

  Adam was already in bed, reading, or rather trying to read, in the face of Margaret’s agitation. She was walking around the room, brushing her hair as she went.

  “I assumed that she was probably bored and wanted to get back to her boyfriend, guy, lover, whatever you want to call him.”

  “Well, now you know. Adam, it was awful. I’m sick over it, sick, as much as I would be if Megan or Julie had lashed out at me like that.”

  He shrugged. “Megan and Julie have time yet. Nina’s old enough to do what she wants.”

  “But you’re the one who talked about the careless life in the fast track and all that stuff. I was the one who said we should let her alone, that she would take care of herself. And now you don’t even seem to be particularly interested.”

  “I’m interested. I’m listening. Also, I’m seeing that there’s nothing that we can do about it.”

  An emotional storm was rolling within Margaret: frustration, sorrow, and exasperation were a whirlpool of contending winds. And repeating, “Nothing we can do about it?” she wailed. “Nothing?”

  Laying the book aside, Adam said patiently, “Times change, and we have to change with them whether we like it or not. Or—”

  “Or what?”

  “Get lost,” he said.

  It was a strange thing to say. Lost? How? And studying him as she stood beside the bed, she saw that he was truly weary.

  He had closed his eyes, and propped against the pillow, he seemed suddenly—she searched for a word—remote. Absent, as when he had stared over the rim of the coffee cup. There were things he was keeping from her. Good husband that he was, he did not want to pile unnecessary burdens upon her.

  They were working him to death, she thought now, as she often thought. His hours were disgraceful. An organization, if it were properly run, ought not to need conferences three or four nights every week. They were working him to death. And in her righteous indignation, her fear and love, she put Nina aside.

  “There are things on your mind that you’re keeping from me,” she said softly. “You mustn’t do that. Talk to me, darling. Let me help you.”

  “Well. Okay. Jenks got a raise and I didn’t. I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but it leaked out.”

  “Ah, that hurts!” she cried. And sitting down on the edge of the bed, she laid her hand on his forehead, stroking and soothing. “Yes, yes. It’s bitter, not fair, when you deserve it so much more. I understand.”

  Adam looked up at her. “You’re so kind,” he said.

  “Kind? That’s an odd thing to say. I’m your wife. I love you.”

  He pressed her hand.

  “So be it, Adam. The dickens with Jenks or anybody else. We have enough. We have so much. We have each other.”

  Smiling in gratitude, he closed his eyes.

  TEN

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Randi. After the last guest had departed, they stood among the cheerful litter of an outdoor lunch, looking at the new pool, which was the reason for the day’s entertainment. Under the slanting sun of the windless afternoon, its still surface lay like a gilded coin that someone had carelessly dropped upon the grass.

  “For a few dollars more we could have had a bigger one, practically Olympic size, the man told me.”

  “Not a few dollars, Randi. Another three thousand.”

  “Adam, you’re so tight!”

  “You forget, I have to be.”

  He supposed that it was natural for her to forget. What, after all, could she know about orthodontists’ bills and college funds? Actually, there had been no need for him to pay for half the cost of this pool. On the other hand, he spent so much time here at Randi’s house that he had felt an obligation to contribute to it.

  Anyway, it was accomplished now. The terrace had been newly bricked, there were new yellow awnings, chairs, tables, and a circle of potted September flowers: chrysanthemums and asters.

  “End of summer,” Randi said wistfully. “The year’s growing late.”

  Adam looked at his watch. “The day is too. I’ll just help clear this stuff away and get going.”

  “What’s the rush? You said they all went to the dog show.”

  “I know, but I’m worried that somebody might decide to stop at the office and surprise me.”

  “When will you stop worrying yourself to death? But you were always like that, worried that you wouldn’t get your term paper in on time and worried that you wouldn’t graduate with honors. Yet everything you worried about didn’t happen.”

  “This is different,” Adam said.

  It needed several trips back and forth to bring everything back to the kitchen. While Randi took her usual unhurried steps, Adam rushed. He was feeling the strain of the double life. The day had been wonderful; it was always wonderful here until it came time to leave, when the pressure upon him to reach home grew intense.

  He had a terrible fear, then, of walking into the unsuspecting family circle and making some careless slip that would betray him, as well as a terrible fear that during his absence some betrayal might already have occurred. Today he was supposed to be looking up records for the income tax.…

  “The kitchen turned out well, don’t you think?” Randi said. “The last of Bunting’s money. It wasn’t all that much, though, and it’s better here than lying in the bank.”

  She had bought the best. Supposedly, this was a European kitchen. Adam knew nothing about such things, about center islands and state-of-the-art ovens; the kitchen at home was what it had always bee
n, he suspected, though during his marriage they had replaced things whenever it became cheaper to replace than to repair them.

  But this bright new shine was so important to Randi. He found appealing the almost childish pleasure that she was taking in this house of hers, in fluffy lace curtains, fringed lampshades, and the new monster-sized television. It was all so tasteless, so innocent. And so touching.

  “I need to shower and get into my suit,” he said as he took off his shorts.

  “The dog show lasts till five. I looked it up in the paper.”

  “You miss nothing, do you? But all the same I have to go.”

  She gave a little pout. “You’re always leaving. I never get to see you.”

  “Darling, that’s not quite true.”

  “Okay, I know it isn’t. And I know you do your best. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though, if you simply lived here?”

  He did not answer. Since their situation was hardly an easy one, but rather an almost impossible one, quite obviously the easy reply was that what she wanted was equally impossible. There were people back in Elmford, four people.…

  As if she were reading every thought that lay behind Adam’s silence, she said briskly, “Okay, enough of that. You know what we’ll do? Instead of a shower you can take a dip in the pool. I’ll go too. Skinny-dip. Last of the season. It’s almost too cold already.” While she was speaking, her shorts and halter top came off. “Race you,” she cried. “Race you to the pool!”

  One tremendous splash followed the other. The sun burned their shoulders, and the water froze their legs.

  “I feel like a baked Alaska!” Randi laughed. “Come warm me if you can. Make believe we’re in bed. Haven’t you ever done this? It’s fun. It’s crazy. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The fact is, he thought as he drove through Randolph Crossing toward Elmsford, that all the common sayings are true: We’re mad about each other, and Can’t keep away from each other. They were all true.

  Good God, she must have learned every sexual variation known to man! She must have read every manual in English and a couple in Hindi besides.

  Still, that was hardly the whole story. He felt good when he was with her. There was something in the atmosphere of her house that relieved him of care. He forgot about the office, about Ramsey and Jenks, and about Jenks getting the raise that should have been his, Adam’s. It was the atmosphere that made the difference. In these two years that he and Randi had been together, he had entered another atmosphere.