Open House

by Elizabeth Berg

“All right, Mother?”

  “All right. Sam?”

  “I really have to go.”

  “Real quick, now, just listen. You’re going out anyway, right? I have an extra coupon for a pedicure, you could swing by Stephano’s and get one with me. Wouldn’t cost you anything, not a cent, even the tip is included. I know you think it’s silly, but really, a good pedicure can do you a world of good, change your whole outlook. When your feet feel good, you do, too. This could be just the ticket.”

  “I don’t think so. But thanks.”

  I hang up the phone, go upstairs to dress. Once, after I broke up with my high school sweetheart, my mother bought me pedal pushers. She came into my bedroom where I’d been weeping, holding them up and swaying them from side to side. “Look what’s back in style,” she said. “With a cute little pair of sandals?” When I didn’t respond, she sat on the bed beside me, put her arm around me. “Well, honey, what is it? Don’t you like yellow? I thought they were so cheerful. But I swear, they have every color under the sun. I can go back right now and exchange them. How about purple? Would that do it?” She squeezed me, leaned over to look into my face, wiped some tears away. “Pink?”

  When we were roommates in college, Rita had once asked, extremely gently, if my mother were mentally retarded. “No,” I said. “Just . . . Southern.” That was the only explanation I could come up with at the time. And I still make do with it.

  3

  THE SALESMAN AT TIFFANY’S IS WEARING A NAVY BLUE SUIT, A beautiful red silk tie, and a white shirt with discreet blue stripes. Also monogrammed cuff links: gold, with a rich patina. He is half bald, red-nosed; a drinker, I suppose, though an elegant one, who makes his martinis in a Baccarat pitcher before he passes out from them every night. Perhaps I’ll buy one of those pitchers, too.

  Thus far I have ordered a Limoges china tea set. It is for me to use in the late afternoons. I will sit by a window that has good light and that will also, very soon, have French lace curtains. Or Belgian, whatever’s more expensive.

  After some deliberation, I selected the American Garden china pattern. I liked the drooping petals of the scattered and varied flowers, the hopeful green curl of the leaves that surrounded them. The thin, outer ring of gold (“Fourteen karat?” I asked. “Twenty-three, madam,” he answered) around the edge of the plate was beautiful next to the inner ring of a rich navy blue.

  I never wanted such things before, and David was indifferent—he’d had enough of it all growing up. But now I do want them. I’m not sure why. Well, yes I do know why. I want them because they cost a fortune, and I think David should have to pay. Such a cliché—you break my heart and I break the bank.

  Now I’m looking at silver, I want a teaspoon to accompany the tea set. Sugar? I will ask myself. Oh yes, please, I will answer. The man has recommended a floral pattern for the silver, something also called American Garden, but I actually prefer Audubon, which features birds, as well as flowers. “Would that work?” I ask the man, and he stares slightly past me as he answers, “Of course, you could do that . . .”

  Ah.

  On the back of my heel is a messy Band-Aid from where I cut myself shaving this morning—I feel as though that Band-Aid has migrated onto my forehead. I would like to step into the body of a woman who knows how to order silver. Also I would like to step into the body of a woman whose insides do not feel as though they have been spending time against the fine side of a cheese grater.

  After an awkward moment I say, “I think I’ll just go ahead with the American Garden design. Now, a teaspoon is ninety dollars, is that right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jesus! “And . . . let me just ask you, a complete place setting of this silver would be . . .”

  “Four hundred and eighty-five dollars, for the four pieces. Plus tax, of course.”

  “Four pieces?”

  “Yes. That’s the two forks, a knife, and a spoon.”

  “No dessert spoon?”

  “That would be extra. A dessert spoon would be another one hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  “Oh. Right. And so a five-piece setting would be . . .”

  “Six hundred and ten dollars.”

  “I see.” Ever so slightly, my stomach begins hurting.

  The man waits, standing so straight and still I wonder for a moment if he is mechanized, a little Tiffany’s trick that nearly succeeds due to the verisimilitude of the reddened nose. But no, there, he is exhaling real air. I sense an extremely polite impatience. He knows I’m a fake; he doesn’t think I can afford any of this. Well, he’s absolutely right. I can’t. But the bill will go to David.

  “Suppose I wanted an entire silver setting,” I say.

  A light in the pale blue eyes. “For . . .”

  I feel the color rise in my face. Has he understood? Does he know what I’m doing? Do I? “Well, I just . . . like it.”

  “Oh yes, understandably, of course. But . . . Place settings, I meant. Service for . . .”

  “Oh! Yes. For . . . six?”

  He nods, smiles. His teeth cross endearingly in the front. I can see the tracks of his comb through his hair. I wonder if Vitalis is back in style. Should I tell Travis to start using it? Oh, too much is on me now.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I say. “Let’s make it service for ten.” There. Now I feel better.

  “Could you excuse me for just one moment?” the man asks. “I’ll get my calculator. And I need to go in back for some more order forms. It will be just a moment.”

  I give a grand wave of dismissal. Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth Taylor. “Take your time,” I tell him. “I’ll just look around.”

  I put the sample teacup back carefully on the lighted display shelf, then move over to the jewelry. I walk past emerald rings, ruby rings, diamond necklaces, gold watches. Past whimsical pins: bejeweled sea horses and dragonflies, bees and frogs. I stop to admire long strands of lambent pearls draped over black velvet. Uniformed guards watch me from the corners of their eyes, their arms loosely crossed. I try on a channel-set sapphire-and-diamond necklace. Then I try on a bracelet, an Étoile twist, eighteen-karat gold, studded with diamonds set in platinum. I turn my wrist this way and that, watching the light bounce off the stones. Very nice. “And this is how much?” I ask the young woman helping me.

  “Three thousand, five hundred dollars.” She is wearing a gray suit with matching heels, pearl studs. And a ring with an acornsized diamond; it must be borrowed from the store. Her hairdo, a tightly wound twist, is much too severe. To say nothing of her demeanor. This woman needs to get out and play more. Although maybe she does play. Maybe this job, in fact, is playing. Maybe she lives in a dump with three wild roommates and tells them stories about the dipshits who shop at Tiffany. I hope so.

  “That bracelet looks wonderful on you,” the woman says. “It suits you.”

  The standard line.

  But “It does, doesn’t it?” I say. “I’ll take it. I’ll wear it out. We’ll just add it to the other purchases.”

  “Certainly,” the woman says, and nods to the man across the aisle in china, who has resumed his post. He stands politely waiting. When I go back over to him, he looks at the bracelet. “Lovely selection. Very elegant.”

  “Thank you,” I say. There’s no reason in the world for me not to wear things like this. I have always liked the look of blue jeans and diamonds; I, too, can wear them. This will be my everyday bracelet, my signature piece.

  “Here’s how it all breaks down.” The man shows me the figures for the cost of the silver and china. With the cost of the bracelet, my total will be over twelve thousand dollars. Twelve thousand! The number zips a finger up my spine, thrills me deeply in a way that reminds me of sex. From what I can recall.

  “Well, I . . . My goodness!” I say, and start laughing. And then stop. My fingers wander to the area behind my ear. An old, nervous habit: the body seeking a consultation with the body. “Whew!”

  Silence from th
e man. From the whole store, it seems.

  Finally, “I . . . Oh, God. I’m sorry,” I say. I take the bracelet off, lay it on the counter. “I think maybe I should just go with the tea set, okay? And the one teaspoon, as I had originally planned. Would that be all right?”

  “Of course.”

  I don’t know how people fall out of love, Sam. It’s an old story, isn’t it? The fact is, I can’t endure any of this any longer. “Endure.” He actually said that.

  “Or . . . You know what?” I tell the man. “Let me have it all.” I put the bracelet back on, lean in closer to him. “Thought you’d lost me there, huh?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all. It’s a big decision.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “My name?” Three long fingers to his breastbone, shyly. Oh, he’s sweet. Why didn’t I marry someone like him? “It’s James.”

  “I’m Samantha. Sam.”

  “I’m glad to meet you.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  He looks up. “No, I mean . . . apart from that.”

  “Well. Thank you.” I swallow away a sudden tightening in my throat, pull out my checkbook. I need new checks. I need, I need, I need, I need.

  DRIVING HOME, I pass a young black woman standing at the side of the road with a little girl, perhaps four years old. The woman is holding up a sign that says, “Will work for food.” I pull over to the curb, lower the window. The woman approaches me hesitantly.

  “Here,” I say, holding the bracelet out to her. “Don’t get ripped off, selling it. It’s real. It’s worth three thousand, five hundred dollars.”

  The woman looks at the bracelet, then at me.

  “Take it,” I say.

  She shakes her head, mutters something, walks away.

  “Hey!” I call after her.

  She keeps walking.

  I cut the engine, get out of the car, and run after her. “Wait! I want to give you this! It’s real! I’m not kidding!”

  The woman turns slowly. “You a cop or something?”

  “No, I am not.” My breathing is ragged. How did I get so out of shape?

  “You crazy, then?”

  “Mommy?” the child says softly.

  “Just a minute, baby. Hold on.” Then, to me, “What’s your deal anyway? I take the bracelet, you shoot me in the back, is that it?”

  “Mommy, I have to pee,” the little girl says.

  “I know, I’m going to take you, we going home in just a minute.” The woman stares at me through narrowed eyes, considering. She has a lovely face, a missing tooth near the front of her mouth. She is wearing a burgundy sweatshirt, yellow corduroy pants, a dirty jean jacket with half its buttons missing. The little girl wears newer sneakers and blue jeans, a down jacket zipped to her chin, though the October evening is mild.

  “I just bought this,” I say. “But I . . . don’t want it. I want to give it to you.”

  “Shit. For real?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman shrugs, takes the bracelet, and quickly shoves it into her pocket.

  The little girl, who had been hiding behind her mother’s leg, peeks out. “My name is Tiffany.”

  “Is that right?” There you are, this was meant to be.

  The woman reaches out to touch my arm. “God bless you,” she says, her eyes full of tears.

  I can think of nothing to say. I watch the woman and her daughter walk away, then call out, “Did you need a ride?”

  The woman turns around, keeps walking backward. “No, ma’am. We almost there. But thank you. God bless you, now.”

  I get back into my car, pull out into the traffic.

  I don’t know, I feel good. I don’t know why I bought that bracelet. In my jewelry box are a fair number of velvet cases holding necklaces and bracelets that David gave me for my birthday, for Christmas. But I don’t like fancy jewelry; I never have. The fancy things I like are sheets. Pots and pans. And the things I really like aren’t fancy at all: old aprons and hankies. Butter wrappers from the one-pound blocks. Peony bushes, hardback books of poetry. And I like things less than that; the sticky remains at the bottom of the apple-crisp dish. The way cats sometimes run sideways. The presence of rainbows in a puddle of oil. Mayonnaise jars. Pussy willows. Wash on a line. The tick-tock of clocks, the blue of the neon sign at the local movie house. The fact that there is a local movie house.

  I turn off the radio, listen to the quiet. Which has its own, rich sound. Which I knew, but had forgotten. And it is good to remember.

  4

  I AM SITTING IN THE FAMILY ROOM IN DAVID’S RECLINER looking at the Martha by Mail catalogue and remembering a time when I had a long-lasting flu and David came home with a handmade quilt that he’d bought for me. He covered me with it, then lay down beside me and read me a story from a collection I’d just bought. And then he made spaghetti for him and Travis, and soup for me. That was Before. When did After start? I don’t remember it starting. I only remember it having arrived. Things were bad for such a long time before he left. But I miss him. I can feel loneliness in me like circulation; as constant and as irrefutable.

  I see that Martha has some very lovely hors d’oeuvres accessories. Paper leaves on which to serve cunning canapés that take about a month to make. I don’t really believe that Martha herself does any of this. People say she does, but I just don’t think it’s true. I’ll bet she lies in the bathtub and weeps and her staff does everything. I flip through pages of matelassé bedding, egg-shaped soaps, ribbon mirrors. I’ll bet she’s lonely as hell and no one knows. They think she’s rich and happy and they don’t understand how blank her slate is.

  I’ll bet no one even calls her, except for business. I heard she lives in Connecticut, was it Fairfield? I pick up the phone, call information, hear the automated voice ask, “What city?” “Fairfield, Connecticut,” I say. “What listing?” the voice asks, and I say, “Martha Stewart.” “Please hold,” a real voice says, and I hang up.

  The phone rings immediately and I let the machine get it, then hear Rita say, “Are you there? It’s me.”

  I pick up the phone. “Oh, God, Rita. I thought you were Martha Stewart.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. How are you? You got my letter?”

  “Yes, I got your letter. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t feel like talking about it.”

  “Do you now?”

  I say nothing.

  “Well, I never liked him. You know that. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, no chance of that.”

  “I mean, remember when you got engaged, and you showed me the ring? I thought you were crazy. I didn’t like that ring. It was tasteless. Almost two carats, when we were eating dinner from cans!”

  True. We did eat dinner from cans, Rita and I. We were in our first apartment, still students. We ate Hormel Chili, Franco-American Spaghetti, Dinty Moore stew—usually unheated. If we were stoned, we made do with chocolate chips.

  Then one evening when I was riding the bus home from class, I met David. He asked me for a drink, told me in the smoky bar that his car was in the shop, that’s why he was on the bus; normally he never rode the bus. He looked exactly like Paul Newman with brown eyes, that’s what I told everyone; and everyone who met him agreed, with a kind of reluctant awe—after all, what was Newman without his eyes?

  David came from a family of extraordinary wealth, but he claimed not to be affected by it; said he preferred, actually, living well below his means. With certain exceptions. His car, for instance, an antique Morgan that he loved so much for its voluptuous lines he forgave it every inconvenience. His clothes, too, that David said were no big deal, but whose labels and fabrics suggested otherwise. After making love with him the first time, I walked around the apartment for the rest of the night wearing only his pale yellow V neck, so as to fully appreciate the feel of fine cashmere. “Keep it,” he’d said, yawning, when he
left that night, and went home wearing a jacket over his T-shirt. Later, Rita had borrowed the sweater and spilled red wine on it, which only prompted David to buy two more—one for each of us.

  “You were jealous,” I tell Rita.

  “I was not! I felt sorry for you, that you . . . I don’t know, you stopped having fun. You started being serious all the time, trying really hard to be whatever he wanted you to be, whatever the hell that was. I honestly felt sorry for you. Everybody did! You just . . . lost yourself.”

  I am too busy to respond to such an accusation. I am concentrating on drawing a square on my knee with my finger. The sides are not coming out even, I can tell, even though the square is invisible. I can’t draw, either.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Oh God, Rita, I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  I do remember, though. I felt, marrying David, like a child handed a gift that was too big. I was convinced that I loved him, but it was a nervous love, even at the start; and there was a certain holding back on his part that seemed mean-spirited. But I was sure I could change that. His family was cold; it wasn’t his fault; what he wanted more than anything was to open himself up. I would be his wife and help him. Over the years, I looked for ways into him, for an essential kind of access; and I failed at finding it again and again.

  “So what are your plans?” Rita asks.

  I look out the kitchen window. Puffy clouds like the kind Travis used to draw, a deep blue sky. It’s beautiful outside. The earth turns. Yesterday, I made a list that said: Clear yard of debris. Get gas. Return calls. I might as well have added: Eat. Breathe.

  “I don’t really have any plans,” I say. “Plans are too hard. All I’ve done so far is to spend a whole bunch of money.”

  “Well, good. That’s a start. What’d you buy, underwear? That’s what my friend Eileen did. The day her husband left—for a fucking dental hygienist who’d given both of them these weird gum massages—she went to Victoria’s Secret and spent five hundred dollars in about fifteen minutes. She got matching everything. And a whole bunch of dirty stuff. Lewinsky thongs, garter belts . . .”