Open House

by Elizabeth Berg

  “Okay?” I say.

  “What for?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what for?’ To eat.”

  He shrugs, pushes his plate away. “I’m done.”

  “What do you think we should have for dessert?” He’ll help me, Travis loves to help make dessert.

  “I don’t care. What, is he moving back here?”

  “Well.” I put his plate in the sink, run water on it. “No. He’s not moving back. He’s just coming for dinner.”

  Travis nods, picks up his book bag, and starts out of the room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Homework.”

  “Travis?”

  He turns, annoyed.

  “I think you should—you know, remember that this was not my idea. I mean Dad moving out and everything. None of it was my idea.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, you act. . . . I don’t know why you’re so mad at me.” But even as I say it, I realize I do know. He’s mad at me for the same reason I’m mad at myself. Because although this was not my idea, it is my fault.

  “I have to go do my homework.”

  “Fine.”

  I open the refrigerator, pull out the steak. I’m making beef Stroganoff, David’s favorite. God, that’s good! he said, last time I made it. You can cook, honey; that you can do. I slice the meat thinly, look out the window at the tree branches swaying in the wind. It’s supposed to storm tonight. A power outage, and David stays to take care of us, how could he leave?

  I rinse off the mushrooms, recall King pointing out a leaf on one of the trees we passed. “Maple,” he said. “Their leaves look too big for the tree, don’t you think? Like kittens’ paws.”

  I’d asked him the names of the other trees we passed. He knew them all, tried to show me how to identify a tree by looking at the bark, the leaves, the structure of the branches. I learned Dutch elms, oaks. Birches, of course. Black locust, whose blossoms he told me smelled like grape lollipops. “Cardinal,” he said, about a sound we heard coming from the tops of one of the trees, “hear how it’s like a whistle?” I asked if he could see the bird and he handed me the dogs’ leashes and used his big hands to make a frame, and then I saw him, too. I learned blue jay (creaky gate) and catbird. “It does sound like a cat!” I said, and King smiled. “Ain’t life a playground?”

  “What are you doing with all these dogs, anyway?” I asked, when we stopped in a park to rest. And he told me walking dogs was his job for the day, he took jobs by the day. Just so happened that his assigned area was near my neighborhood. Yesterday he’d handed out samples of cheese at a supermarket. Smoked Gouda. Very good.

  “I see,” I said. I didn’t really see. I think what he does is pretty nutty. But I like him. He’s such a nice man, plain but really good, like bread and butter. And so easy to be with. Relief. I told him to come by tomorrow, if he could.

  DAVID ATE LESS than half of what was on his plate. Clearing it, I ask, “No good?”

  “No,” he says, “it’s fine. It’s great. I’m just . . . I’m trying to cut down on that stuff a little. You know.”

  “Oh. Sure.” He had half a glass of wine to my three, too. I put the plates in the dishwasher. I should have made chicken. Fish. No. I should have made something brand-new, oh God, of course I should have.

  “Dessert?” I ask.

  “Aw, Sam. I have to pass. But God knows Travis will finish it.” Travis had taken a huge piece of lemon meringue pie up to his room, then come down for another.

  “Coffee?” My voice is thin, taut. “Want coffee at least?”

  If he refuses that, I’ll tell him to leave.

  “Sure,” he says. “But let me go and say good night to Travis. Then we can talk.”

  About what? I think. After Travis left the table, we went over money, what days were whose with our son. Then there was an awkward silence that lasted so long I had a strange impulse to burst out laughing. David was looking down and chewing at his lip, an old nervous habit, and it was no longer my job to remind him not to do it. He moved his spoon left, right. Left. I wanted to snatch it from his hand and say, “Look at me!” but I didn’t know what I’d say after that.

  “Be right back,” he says.

  I watch him walk toward the stairs. I have always loved how he looks from behind. The bit of hair over his collar. His broad shoulders, a good butt, even Rita always admitted that. I hear the stairs at the top of the landing creak in their familiar way. A father, going upstairs to say good night to his son. What has happened here? How have I lost this? I pour two mugs of coffee, bring them into the family room and set them on the coffee table. I sit at the end of the sofa, then move to the middle. I use my finger to quickly check the corners of my eyes for chunks of mascara, ruffle my hair to make it look fuller.

  When he comes back downstairs, David says, “He’s asleep already!”

  “Yeah. He’s been doing that.”

  He looks at his watch. “Eight-thirty?”

  “He’s been getting up earlier lately.”

  David takes his mug of coffee, sits at the edge of his recliner. He looks like he has a body-wide itch he can’t scratch. He doesn’t really want to talk, not about anything. He was just being polite, he feels sorry for me. “Where’s your roommate?” he asks.

  “Spending the night at her boyfriend’s. Sometimes she does that.”

  “Really!”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” David clears his throat, sets his coffee down no good? and then there is silence except for a slight humming sound from one of the lamps. Quiet! I want to tell it. Can’t you let me think? Can’t you see I’m trying to do something here?

  “Sam . . .” David finally says, and as soon as he does, I am up and moving toward him. Come back, come back, please come back, is at the back of my throat.

  I kneel at his feet, put my arms around his waist, hold my breath to keep from sobbing. I am horrified; somewhere over my head, a miniature version of myself looks down in disgust, hands on hips, head shaking. But there, there is the feel of his hand on the back of my head, his voice saying my name again, but softer. I close my eyes. And now his fingers are on my neck, so warm. I push my face harder into him. He cradles my head, wordless and still, and I open my eyes and see his belt buckle. Which I know. Here he is.

  I close my eyes again, begins to kiss gently around the area of his zipper. The fabric smells warm, ironed, clean. I start to unzip his pants, hear him pull in his breath sharply. I stop, wait.

  Nothing.

  I finish unzipping, reach inside his underwear. Let me. I am aware of my own wetness, the sweet, specific ache of desire. Oh, let me, let me. He is flaccid. I rub, gently. Nothing. I pull my hair back, take him into my mouth. “Sam,” he says. “Don’t.” But he does not push me away, and so I continue. In a minute, he will respond. And then I will say I heard you, I heard everything you said at dinner but you don’t mean it, you see? You can’t mean it, we just need time, we just need to change a few things about the way we were together. You don’t really want to leave, look how you still care for me.

  But he is still limp. What am I doing wrong? My knees hurt. I want to change position, but I’m afraid to move. I take in more of him, change my rhythm.

  And now, still soft, David pulls away from me. I don’t know where to look. Even in the worst of times, this has always worked.

  I sit back on my heels, looking down at the floor, hear him zip up. My humiliation is huge in me, it holds me to the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  I nod.

  “It probably isn’t a good idea, anyway, Sam.”

  “No.”

  “I should go.”

  “Right.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Nothing.

  “Sam?”

  “Yes. I’m . . . You should go.”

  “Is there anything else you needed to talk about?”

  “No.” Here, in my stomach, a blunt feeling of something landing. An
d then a slight nausea.

  He stands, reaches down a hand to me.

  “Just go,” I tell him.

  I hear the front door close, then his car door. I go to the window, watch him drive away. I should have tried to recall a scene from one of the adult movies we’d rented, something we tried a few times when our lovemaking had sputtered, then stalled. But when I think of those movies now, I can only remember how sorry I felt for the women—their terrible, flat eyes, their bad teeth.

  The movies hadn’t worked at the time, either. The last time we’d watched one, I, lying beside David in the obligatory flimsy black nightgown, aware of his erection, had nonetheless asked, “Oh, God, what would their dads think?”

  David had frowned, and I had stared at the screen, thinking, well, what would they think? Some of the girls had bruises—subtle bluish marks that the makeup couldn’t quite cover. The background music was so ridiculous, and the moaning so loud and urgent it was completely unconvincing. “I think there ought to be some element of surprise in the plot,” I said. “And there needs to be some vulnerability in the characters. In the men.”

  “What the hell do you think this is for, Sam?” David asked, then sighed and turned the TV off. Which I was glad about. Who could watch those things, really, and not laugh? Or weep? I always envisioned the girls coming home from those jobs, their heels click clicking back to too-warm apartment vestibules, to dented mailboxes with only bills in them, the girls’ first names indifferent initials.

  He was trying to tell me something, renting those movies. Why didn’t I listen? Once again, I feel a movement in my stomach, a nausea. I go upstairs quickly and vomit in the hall bathroom. After I flush and turn on the cold water to wash my face, I hear a knocking at the door. I open it to find Travis, his eyes squinting in the light. “Are you sick?”

  I reach down to hug him, kiss his cheek. “No, I’m okay, honey. Go back to bed.” I watch him start back toward his bedroom, then call, “Travis? Were you sleeping till now? Did you just wake up?”

  “Yeah,” he says sleepily.

  “Okay. Good night.”

  What could I have been thinking? What if Travis had come downstairs? “What are you doing, Mom?” he would have asked. “Gross!” I would have pulled away quickly, fingered the button at the top of my silk blouse, blushing furiously, and David would have zipped up fast, covering his uncooperative penis that had lain in his lap like a grubworm. Actually, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to be discovered. At least then David would have been embarrassed, too.

  I gently close Travis’s door and go into my bedroom, sit on the bed for a long moment. Then I remove my wedding rings and put them in my jewelry box. So many others have done this. I am not the only one. I am not the only one. But here, I am the only one.

  I go down the hall and into Lydia’s room, turn on her bedside light. It’s a comforting space: a white afghan folded over a chair, a hardback book with a faded blue cover lying on the footstool, bookmark in place. A faint smell of lilac. I look around, feeling only a little guilty. There are photographs on the dresser, gold and silver frames on a white-lace runner. I pick up one of Thomas, hold it under the lamplight to see it better. He must have been a very handsome man, in his prime. His eyes are still an arresting blue, his gaze steady and direct. His ears are large and they stick out just a little; probably they used to embarrass him, but they seem distinguished to me, senatorlike. I also like Thomas’s white mustache and the deep wrinkles in his forehead, reminding me of the beautiful lines you’ve seen from an airplane window, etched in the earth. It is such an intimate history I see here on Thomas’s forehead. This is worth something, isn’t it?

  Maybe I should consider dating much older men. What’s it like to love an eighty-year-old? When Thomas and Lydia go to bed together—and I know they do—what’s it like? It must be so slow, it must be so exquisitely tender. I imagine a gentle old hand on my neck, sliding down my back, acknowledging each vertebra. I would not be bothered by any of his age spots; I would let in an older lover’s touch like sunshine on a winter day, yes I would. And with an old lover, I could feel so young! You’re so beautiful, he would say to me, oblivious of my recent need to hold small print away from myself. My darling, he would say. I pull Thomas’s photo closer, close my eyes, open them to the blurry sight of his smile. I kiss it. Then I sigh, wipe my marks off the glass, put the picture carefully back on Lydia’s dresser.

  Oh, I envy Lydia her whole correct life: drinking tea out of her blue-and-white bone china cup every morning, dressed for the day in a wool skirt and white blouse, a pin with an elegant luster at her throat. She has a woman friend named Katherine who visits her regularly, who always wears a hat and gloves with her dark coat—button galoshes last time, too, defense against an early, thin layer of snow. She carries an old-fashioned purse and I love when she reaches in to get her hankie, or compact, or her candies in their flowered tin. I imagine a heavy fountain pen in that purse, the ink a peacock blue. I imagine an address book with gold-trimmed pages, each entry done in perfect Palmer script. A jeweled pillbox, a tortoiseshell comb. No Day-Timer. No Mace.

  Katherine and Lydia have been friends for more than sixty years, Lydia told me, exchanging recipes and child care and patterns for padded-shoulder suits in their early years; now going to museums and flower shows, to downtown department stores to share sandwiches for lunch, and to hospitals to visit friends—or, occasionally, each other.

  Outside, I see a vein of lightning stab the sky, and then I hear the low rumble of thunder. A wonderful sound when you are in bed with someone you love. I watch the rain come down, hear how the sound changes from tapping to drumming. The urgency! It should be snow; but for this freakish run of warm weather, it would be snow. I wish it were. I wish the season would change definitively. I slip off my shoes and lie down on Lydia’s bed, turn out the light, pull her beautiful rose-colored quilt over myself. I will sleep here, wrapped in the comfort of someone else’s life, far away from those rings I left behind me.

  I lie still, my hands folded across my stomach, listening to the anchoring sound of my own breathing. Sheets of water cascade down the window. Inside this house now suddenly too big, my boy and I lie down in our separate places and give ourselves over to the quiet repair of sleep. Outside, the sky weeps and weeps. Or so it seems to me. Times like this, everything in the world becomes personal.

  10

  IT TAKES ME A FEW DAYS TO TELL RITA WHAT HAPPENED. AND when I do, she is her usual Sagittarius self. “I can’t believe you made such a fool of yourself,” she says.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have told you. I knew I shouldn’t tell you. I don’t need recriminations now. I need support.”

  “I can’t support you in something so stupid. What are you begging him for? Getting rid of him will be good for you!”

  “Yeah, it’s been great so far.” I get out of bed, slide my feet into my slippers. “I have to go. I have to get dressed.”

  “It’s noon there!”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “I thought you were getting dressed first thing, these days.”

  “That didn’t last. Martha Stewart is crazy.”

  “Well, we all know that. I don’t know why you would ever take a suggestion from her in the first place. Everything she tells people is just a set-up for failure. She’s a misanthrope.”

  I open my closet, look for something to wear. “I don’t think Martha’s so bad. I think I want her for a friend instead of you. When I look at her magazine, I feel soothed. When I talk to you, I feel like hanging myself.”

  “All right, listen. Listen to me. I would not be your friend if I didn’t say this to you: I don’t feel sorry for a victim who keeps choosing to be a victim. That’s what you’re doing. You’re not even trying. You’re just sinking deeper and deeper into feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “No, I’m not!” Yes, I am.

  “Have you looked for a job yet?”

  “No.” Yes. I asked at the nur
sing home and they said they didn’t need anyone. Then I looked in the paper and everything was too hard.

  “Well, get a job!”

  “What can I do? Who’s going to hire a forty-two-year-old woman whose only job experience is singing in a band?”

  “A lot of people would.”

  “I have to go. I’m late for a lunch.”

  “You are?”

  “Don’t get excited. It’s with my mother.”

  “Oh, great, that’ll help you right out.”

  “Well, Louise called. She told me Mom sounded like a wreck when she talked to her last week. She wants me to check up on her—I’ve been kind of ignoring her.”

  “Why doesn’t Louise check up on her?”

  “Let’s see now. Could it be that I live in Massachusetts and Louise lives in Montana?”

  “Well, don’t stay there long. She’ll make you crazier.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Call me later tonight.”

  “What for?”

  “Just do.”

  “You call me. I don’t want to spend the money.”

  “David is still supporting you.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to take any more money from him than I have to.”

  “Well, there you are! That’s the kind of thinking you need to be doing!”

  I hang up, go into the bathroom to wash my face. I feel like I just got a fake A. I’m not interested in saving David money. I’m interested in being mean to Rita.

  “HONEY,” MY MOTHER says sadly, “look at you.”

  We are sitting at my mother’s kitchen table, chicken salad sandwiches before us that have been cut into fours and anchored together with confetti-topped toothpicks. She is objecting to my unwashed hair and my outfit: a pajama top over gray sweatpants. She herself is wearing a sheer white blouse tucked into black-and-white checked pants, and a red cardigan sweater. Earrings that are cherries.

  “I’ll change before Travis gets home; don’t worry about it. I just worked out.”

  She doesn’t bother to call me a liar. I bite into my sandwich, pull a grape out of my mouth, and fling it onto the plate.