by Laura London
Not that he would get anything resembling work done today. At the paper, Jesse would be met with the same cannonade of support and awe that had kept him on the telephone from the moment he had stepped into their house from the Jarochs’ toolshed. No, that wasn’t right. He had showered first, for an inordinately long time, and she remembered how it had made her smile. It must have felt good to spend as much time in the shower as he wanted to again. After that… how could he refuse to talk to his father, or to his editor who had stood behind him, or to his godfather who called long distance from Houston? And then the call from his close high school friend—who had become a priest and ran an inner city rehabilitation program for derelicts; and the call from his favorite professor at the University of Wisconsin. The list went on. He had been on the phone when she went to bed at ten-thirty, and she assumed he would join her soon. She’d had little rest in the past week, since it had begun to look like this time rumor didn’t lie, that the John Doe investigation was finally winding up and the judge would have to order Jesse’s release. Sleep had come to her quickly, but it was the light, uneasy span of drifting consciousness that had been her nighttime companion for the last twenty-five weeks.
The lump in her stomach didn’t want the omelet. But she ate it anyway because he’d made it, and she had as many sentimental idiocies as any other woman in love. If she’d had tears left, she would have cried them. Why hadn’t he slept with her? Making love with Jesse made heaven inside her. She needed that feeling. She had depended on its irresistible sweetness to begin reweaving the severed threads, the faint too-tiny-to-be-seen rent in the marriage fabric that time and tension and pride had left behind. That Jesse hadn’t felt the same need to be with her came as a body blow.
Not having been blessed with Jesse’s zeal for stomping through trouble in hip boots, she had canceled classes at her small ballet school. But the empty day rose before her, a sterile wilderness of inhospitable hours. Jesse would be late coming home. He was stopping off after work to visit his parents, who, to be fair, had also missed him desperately. Between phone calls he had tried to talk her into coming with him, but his cramped family home with its gauntlet of alert, knowing faces was better faced later.
A survey of her closet yielded a lavender sweater. She pulled it over her head in front of the bathroom mirror. The cowl neck looked like it was trying to swallow her head. She wasted ten minutes trying to subdue it, then thankfully noticed it had a moth hole. The moth—friend of man. She was going to raise them and train them to eat all her clothes-purchase errors. The little devils had avoided her new Ralph Lauren suit. Possibly a glance at the price tag had given them indigestion.
She threw on the suit quickly before she could change her mind, arranging the dainty ecru folds of the lace scarf at her throat, opening the front-buttoning skirt to her knees. Watching the stern Donegal tweed flare over her legs, she did a couple of poses she’d seen in Vogue. Feet apart, hands on hips, pout at the mirror. It was the kind of outfit that begged to be postured in, and it carried the typical hazard of all haute couture—she wasn’t sure whether it made her look great or grotesque.
In a city as big as Milwaukee there was no need to be lonely. She knew a number of people who would have been sympathetic company; friendly, reassuring people. Instead she was going to see Jesse’s brother Indy.
Indiana Ludan was easy to find. But that was the only thing about the man that was easy. Any belief that arrogant, promiscuous men were traced with a romantic aura could be cured by an acquaintance with Indy. She had seen the scars he’d left on his deserted lovers.
The scents at the Wisconsin Ballet Company were richly evocative—cologne, cigarettes, sweat, damp clothing, and Ben-Gay. Walking into the barnlike vastness of the rehearsal room she picked Indy out at once. He was alone—the unapproachable star. He lay on the floor at rest, his arms open and relaxed, his feet crossed at the ankles and thrust upraised against the sunny creaminess of a high brick wall. A shaft of steamy light dropped through a frosted window, softening the outline of his body. Blood-red leg warmers concealed his legs, but sweat had plastered his body-hugging orange T-shirt to his torso, revealing every justly famed inch. Little diamonds of perspiration glinted in his hair.
A group of leotarded dancers from the corps de ballet clustered around a distant piano, the graceful images multiplied by the mirrors that covered three walls. One girl was coaxing an inexpert version of “Ragtime” from the keyboard. The rest slugged down canned cola and candy bars while standing balanced on one leg, the other leg in passé or touching one sharply pointed toe to the floor in postures reminiscent of exotic water birds resting with long-legged ease in the shallows. They glanced curiously at Christine as she crossed the wide floor, then returned to quietly chatting.
Indy’s eyes were closed, a signal that he probably wanted to be left undisturbed.
“Looks like you’re into some heavy relaxation,” she said finally.
Haunting heavy eyes opened slowly. The long mouth developed a soft Byronic twist. In a light movement, his arms came to pillow the back of his head, the gesture intimate and unconsciously sensuous. He must have been surprised to see her. She only saw him in family groups and had certainly never sought him out. But the jaded temper didn’t easily reveal surprise.
“They’re thinking of installing a television in the ceiling so I’ll keep awake during breaks watching Dancing with the Stars.” Moss-green eyes regarded her steadily. “Why did you drop by, dear?”
It was a fair question. She had come because, arrogant cynic though he might be, Indiana was more than Jesse’s brother; he was Jesse’s best friend. No one in the world understood her husband better. But he was hardly an easy confidant, and the direct inquiry made her hedge.
“I had an errand in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop in to thank you for helping us out yesterday.”
His smile dawned briefly. “Bull.” He slanted himself onto one elbow. “Have lunch with me, and we’ll talk. I have to miss class this afternoon. The chiropractor’s going to work on my back at two-thirty.” With tender mockery, he added, “You’re a frail flower, Chris. I command you to stay alive while I change.”
He returned in a dusky-rose crew-neck sweater, impeccable suede pants, and the black beret he seemed to wear for the sole purpose of bugging his father, who called it “that damned pancake thing.”
The wind was brisk. Gusts from Lake Michigan blew through the crooked canals that led downtown, teasing up Christine’s skirt and throwing Indy’s honey-blond hair into a skipping dance as they crossed a drawbridge. Sailboats moored in a narrow channel rustled in the breeze under white gulls mewing in motionless flight through a cool faded sky. The heart of the city rose around them, prettily archaic. Streamlined modern structures were a rare and fragile species here, as though the modernists had thrown up their hands in defeat and gone off to build in Los Angeles. No one came to Wisconsin to crane his neck at skyscrapers. Christine often heard it said that Milwaukee had a downtown impressive for a city half its size.
Ballet fans in the noontime crowd of secretaries and executives turned to stare at Indy. They had reason. At nineteen he had been the young phenomenon, the protégé who became a principal danseur at one of the world’s greatest ballet companies, in New York City, where East Coast critics hailed him breathlessly as the finest young dancer in America. Heady stuff. Four years later, at the peak of his public adulation, he had left New York abruptly to dance in Milwaukee, which, as far as the East Coast media establishment was concerned, was like dancing nowhere. Balletomanes struck their collective brow in horror. Few people beyond the family knew about the phone call from Manhattan that had put Jesse on the next plane to New York, or about the cocaine addiction that had almost destroyed the country’s hottest ballet star. Fame was not all joy.
Christine had met Indy once, very briefly, at the height of his reign when he had guest lectured at her college. With a smile and a wince she could recall how she had gawked, and pumped his han
d, and gushed into the vacuum of his polite boredom. And then, with eighteen-year-old impetuosity, she had made much more of it than there was to her friend Marilyn, never anticipating that in two years she and Marilyn would see Indiana Ludan at a lakefront jazz festival, or that Marilyn would grip her arm with maniacal strength and drag her cringingly forward to renew the supposed friendship. Indy had no idea who she was, and wasn’t the kind who troubled to pretend, but the man with the perceptive smile at Indy’s side had been Jesse. And what had happened in that mortifying episode to amuse him and interest him in her, Christine had never quite understood. Jesse just said he was a sucker for terrified women.
A puff of lake-scented air tossed her lace scarf, and Indy’s fingers smoothed it back into place. “Mama’s been on another pilgrimage to the Big Apple?” he said. “You realize, don’t you, that there are only three people in Milwaukee who’ll know that’s a Ralph Lauren. In the Midwest you get better value for your status dollar by putting it into a car.”
“Or tearing out the backyard for a swimming pool. You know what? I’m in a masochistic mood. Tell me how I look. I’m too short to wear this, right? Rate me.
Scale of one through ten—be brutal if you have to.”
“A tempting offer. I’m more interested in what’s going on inside than outside, but if you’d open three more buttons on that skirt, I’d give you… maybe an eight and three quarters. Let’s talk about this masochistic mood of yours.”
She had meant the remark as a joke. Echoed back, it became oddly telling. To avoid his eyes, she glanced sideways toward a construction site wedged between two hotels in the style Jesse had taught her to recognize as Victorian Italianate. There a crew of hard hats were eating pastrami sandwiches. One of them caught sight of Indy, nudged the guy beside him, and said through a mouthful of rye, “Hey, look, Harry—a French guy.”
Crinkling smile lines wreathed the corners of Indy’s pleased grin. When they stopped at the light, he draped an arm over her shoulder, buddy style, his hand dangling gracefully.
“What troubles your heart, my little cabbage?” he said with a French accent.
Doubts and vague images of her betrayal fanned from her conscience. For this first time she meant to break faith with Jesse, to unveil a fear in her marriage to an outsider before she shared it with Jesse. Pride and guilt made her hesitate as the traffic signal ordered them to walk and she stepped down with him into the street.
“Could you kind of wheedle it out of me, do you think?” she asked.
“I thought I was.” His fingers crept up to give the fat gold hoop of her earring a gentle tug. “Should we take out from Watts’ and eat in the park?”
“Brilliant! But are you going to give me trouble about having dessert?”
“Of course not. Why would I care?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Every time I put on an extra pound, you pinch it and say, ‘What’s this?’ ”
“I’ve never done that!”
“Oh, ho ho. You certainly have.”
They had arrived at the Watts’ Building, two stories of ornate Moorish designs worked in a terra-cotta facing. Downstairs the Watts family sold fine china. She and Indy tiptoed, bickering, between glass racks of Wedgwood to reach the elevators to the tearoom upstairs, where waitresses in black with white lace aprons served fresh-faced brides come to choose their china patterns, and charming ladies with blue-white hair and mink stoles. Once she had brought Jesse and he had counted ten minks and refused to come again.
Outside again, peppy breezes scattered paper in swirls around their feet as they found a stone bench and unloaded lunch in a park full of pigeons, whispering trees, and flying spray from a wide round fountain. Taking cautious sips from a steaming paper cup, Christine said, “Here’s your coffee. This one’s my Russian chocolate. Have you found my ginger toast? Oh, thanks. What does it say on the little sugar packages?”
“Trivia questions.” He flipped his over and read: “Who played the wealthy society lady in the Marx brothers movies?”
“Tiny Tim?”
Flipping over the package, he said, “Sorry. Margaret Dumont.”
She drew one of her own from the brown paper bag. “You realize, of course, that this means war. Who sang ‘Ol’ Man River’ in the original production of Show Boat?”
“Jules Bledsoe.”
He was right. Even trivia was beyond her today. “That does it,” she said. “The only recourse for my ego will be popping open three more buttons in my skirt to go from drab to dynamite. Think I should zip into a phone booth to do it?”
He had been warming his hands on his coffee cup, staring half-absently ahead. Suddenly his austere features resolved themselves into a smile. “Do it for Jess—you’ll drive him crazy.”
She froze. Randomly innocent, the remark lit her anxiety like a flare. She had to bite back the urge to fish for reassurance with a blurted denial. If I can’t talk about it without whining, I’ll hate myself later.… Her fingers felt ineptly heavy as she pried at the lid of her chocolate. A sense of her own failure spread inside her, her mistakes pounding numbly at her brain.
If I’d gone to see Jesse in prison, we would know each other now, she thought. But he had refused to let her come. She saw herself again the day of Jesse’s hearing, each detail vivid as she waited beyond the closed courtroom in the hallway of pressed stone and barrel-vaulted ceilings, which were made more somber by old brass fixtures. Four hours; and then Jesse’s lawyer had come through the heavy wood-paneled door with the words everyone but Christine had been expecting. The judge had ordered Jesse to be confined without bail until such time as the investigation was completed. The investigation could continue for a year. There had been no time for Jesse to scrawl a note. His message for her had been conveyed through the lawyer: I love you. Please go home and wait for me to call. There’s a chance I’ll have access to a phone in the afternoon.
It was later, on the phone, that he had told her not to come. The words had been gentle, but cloaked in the force of an iron will. “We’ve got the phone, Chris, and we’ve got letters. Don’t let the dire words from the judge scare you, love. I’ll be out of here in much less than a year—maybe in a couple of weeks. I don’t want you to worry. I’m pretty comfortable. In fact, it’s been interesting. My only problem is thinking about what this is doing to you, and it’ll help if I know you’re safe and warm with the home fires burning.”
The streak of protectiveness in his request had violated every principle they had established in their marriage. The argument that followed led to Jesse saying in a strained sigh made metallic by the telephone, “Don’t come, Chris. I love you too much to expose you to this place.”
After a moment of suffocated fury she had screamed back, “I don’t want to be loved that much!” In the ensuing quiet of that first night, cold with shame, she had gone to bed with those words. She had never again fought with him on the phone. He had lost all liberty, all power now. Let him at least be able to have his choice in this.
It had begun. They were guarding each other. From then on their shields stood between them. Barriers. Boundaries. Too late, she knew she should have stifled the shame and kept the fury.
Aloud she said, “Did Jesse talk about me yesterday?”
Indy bit off half a strawberry and finished it before answering. “Anything juicy, I assume you mean? You know he doesn’t do that, Chris.”
“Not anything juicy. Anything.”
She had never before tried to pump him about his private conversations with Jesse. The fact that she had the nerve and the need today must have begun to communicate her desperation because he said, “Only that the whole thing has been hard on you, and that makes him feel like hell.”
“And you said…?”
“That yes, it had been hard on you, but that you were a spunky lady and you were fine.”
“Yes, damn it! I’m fine, Jesse’s fine, everyone’s fine! Except that no one is fine.” Her wrist smacked her knee, interrupting a vi
gorous gesture, and hot chocolate slopped from the cup, stinging her hand, wetting the dusty cement at her feet. His fingers came quickly to remove the cup and blot her hand with a napkin before he seized both her hands in an aggressive grip.
“You’re scaring me, Chris. No more stalling. What happened last night?”
Feeling sick, she said, “Jesse didn’t come to bed with me.”
He released her cramped fingers. “Are you talking about sex or sleep?”
“Both.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“No. It’s probably too soon to panic, but this has never happened before.… Indiana, tell me not to panic. Something’s wrong. I can feel it. He’s been hurt. God knows what they could have done to him in there that we don’t know about. Terrible things can happen to men in prison. I saw a special on channel four last week that said—”
“It doesn’t matter what you saw. If Jesse was raped in prison, he would have told you, no question. He’s no eighteen-year-old kid. There are things too serious to play around with. Smaller stuff he might try to carry on his own. That one, never.”
The words, clear and measured, described Jesse to a finite edge. Indy was absolutely right. Christine tried to discover her relief, but all she found was the thought, What smaller stuff? revolving like a pinwheel through her disorganized mind. All at once she was hideously embarrassed by her emotionalism, by her hysterical imaginings, by her inability to cope alone with the intricate stress of Jesse’s release. What had been panic dropped abruptly into quiet depression and frustration with her myriad inadequacies. Her hand shaped itself around her brow and then dropped lightly to her knee.
