The Misfortunes of Others

by Gloria Dank

  “Nice, isn’t it? Of course it is. It’s perfect for your dream child. Now go away and lie down or whatever you feel like doing. And keep Bernard away from here, I’m still not talking to him.”

  After a few days, having finished the walls, Weezy relented enough towards Bernard to order him to strip the linoleum off the floor.

  “I don’t do that kind of work,” she announced.

  “I’m happy to do it.”

  “I don’t see why. It’s boring and difficult.”

  “Why should it be different from the rest of my life?”

  Weezy gazed at him in astonishment. “How can you say that? With your firstborn on the way?”

  “Maya says it doesn’t seem real.”

  “That’s because she’s not showing yet. She’s always been sticks and bones, that girl, ever since she was little. Wait till she gets nice and round, and the baby starts to move. Then she’ll believe it.”

  Bernard perked up at this, and went away to change into his work clothes.

  For the next two days they worked happily side by side, Weezy in the hallway cutting fabric and sewing on the old Singer machine that had been stored away in the attic, and Bernard on his hands and knees ripping up the floor. When the tiles were gone, he laboriously sanded, stained and finally oiled and waxed the oak planks that were revealed underneath. When he was finished, the floor glowed a honey-gold that complemented the walls perfectly.

  Weezy was approving. “Very nice. Excellent work, sweetie. Now take a breather, and we’ll hang up the curtains. Look at these beautiful golden rods I picked up for a song at the thrift store. Take down those old curtains and rods, I can’t bear to look at them one more second.”

  They hung the stiff white curtains which Weezy had made, and Bernard swept up the room. Afterwards they stood together in the doorway for a long time.

  Bernard put his arm around Weezy and kissed the top of her head, an unaccustomed display of affection for him. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Of course it is.” Weezy’s eyes were aglow. “It’s divine. Almost good enough for your and Maya’s baby.”

  “Let’s go get her.”

  “Let’s.”

  Maya and Snooky were dumbstruck when shown the results of their work. Maya became quite weepy over it.

  “It’s … it’s so beautiful!”

  “Hormones,” said Snooky, patting her shoulder. “Calm yourself.”

  “It’s just the way I dreamed it would be,” said Maya, sniveling into a tissue.

  “Remain calm. It’s a room, Missy. It’s not the Sistine Chapel.”

  “It’s not a room. It’s … it’s my baby’s nursery!”

  Eventually she had to be led away protectively by Bernard.

  “Perhaps you did too good a job,” said Snooky, lounging in the doorway.

  “She’s pregnant. She’s allowed to cry as much as she wants.”

  Snooky looked around in appreciation. “It is perfect.”

  “I know.”

  The muslin curtains swayed in a breeze which carried in the sweet smell of the pines. Snooky took Weezy’s hand.

  “Perfect,” he said, kissing it.

  Downstairs in the kitchen Snooky made a cup of brown rice tea and handed it to Weezy on a saucer with a shortbread cookie. Weezy gazed into the murky depths doubtfully.

  “What is this shit?”

  “Genmai-cha. Brown rice tea. Japanese. I thought artists liked that kind of stuff.”

  “Don’t you have any real coffee?”

  While he made a pot of coffee, Weezy sat back in her chair and looked around the kitchen with satisfaction on her face. “Beautiful room. Look at the dimensions. It looks like the golden proportion, honestly.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The golden proportion, sweetie. The dimensions that look best to the eye. Didn’t Maya send you to college?”

  “Nobody seems to be sure. She asked me that herself the other day.”

  “You went in body, not in soul.” Weezy chuckled softly to herself. “I mean that with all possible double entendres. I’m sure the women on campus will attest to it.”

  “Mind like a sewer. That’s why you’ve always been my favorite among Maya’s friends.”

  “We’re two old reprobates, you and me.”

  “It’s too bad you don’t go for younger men.”

  “Younger men, perhaps,” Weezy said, twirling a strand of red hair thoughtfully around her finger. “Children, no. Boys I’ve known since they were in diapers, no.”

  “A shame.”

  “You have to draw the line somewhere,” she said, with what seemed like real regret. She accepted a cup of coffee gratefully and inhaled its aroma with a snort of delight. “Delicious. Nothing like real coffee. I assume this isn’t the wimpy decaf variety?”

  “No. Bernard drinks real coffee.”

  “Bernard is a real man.” She drank deeply from the cup. “How Maya managed to unearth him when Bernard never meets or talks to anybody, I’ll never understand. So how have you been, Arthur?”

  “I insist—I must insist that you not use my real name, Louise. So few people know it, and I don’t want the news to get around. I’ve been fine. I flew in from the islands when I heard about Maya’s pregnancy.”

  “Don’t be coy with me, Arthur. Don’t try to impress me. I knew you when your only language was “dah dah” and you spat up three times a day.”

  “Still do.”

  “I’m sure. What’s this feeble attempt to impress me with a reference to the islands? Which island? Or were you simultaneously on all of them?”

  “I was on St. Martin. We also took a trip to a volcanic island called Saba.”

  “Which side were you on?”

  “Which side of what?”

  “Of St. Martin, you moron. The French or the Dutch?”

  “Oh. The French side. I was staying with some friends there.”

  “I was on St. Martin years and years ago,” Weezy said dreamily. “Lovely place. The St. Tropez Hotel. That little fresh-air market in Marigot. Conch stew under the stars.”

  “I was telling Maya about conch stew.”

  “I ate it every night. I couldn’t get enough of it. Of course, I was young then.” Weezy sighed and crunched into her shortbread wafer. “I’m sure now it would constipate me.”

  “You’re hardly old.” Both Maya and Weezy were in their early thirties.

  “Old enough,” Weezy said gloomily. “Old enough. Old enough to have avoided all the good relationships, and to have to eventually settle for something lousy or for nothing at all.”

  “Is that how it is?”

  Weezy breathed heavily into her coffee cup. The steam rose luxuriantly around her face, dewing her forehead and frizzing her hair even more. “There’s nobody, Snooky. There are no decent men.”

  “I’m a decent man.”

  “God, you’re self-centered. What is this? Are we discussing you or me?”

  “One day, Weezy, you’re going to come to your senses. You’ll turn around, and there I’ll be, waiting for you.”

  “What a horrific thought,” she said. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll be married, just like they all are when they reach my age. You’ll marry some little chickie.”

  “I hesitate to correct you, Weezy, but I’m never going to reach your age. I’m always going to be younger than you.”

  “Don’t try to cheer me up. You’ll marry some little chickadoo and go off to live somewhere exotic, like northern New Jersey.”

  “Why northern New Jersey?”

  “Her family will come from there.”

  “A grim prospect,” said Snooky. “Let me just clear up one point. Am I fated to marry a little chickie or a little chickadoo?”

  Weezy exhaled into her coffee. “They all do. They all go off and marry some younger woman. You give them the best years of your life, and then they leave you and end up
with somebody else.”

  “Who is this guy?”

  “Oh, nobody.” Weezy pushed her cup away. “Nobody. A man. One of the great race of men. As childish and self-centered and piggish as all the rest.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Harold.”

  “Well, you should have known better, then.”

  “What’s wrong with the name Harold?”

  “Nothing, if you’re an early Anglo-Saxon king. Otherwise, come on.”

  “True,” said Weezy. This seemed to cheer her up. “True. Perhaps you’re right. I should have known.”

  “Harold left you for a chickie?”

  “Yes. Yes, he did.” Weezy looked despondent. “It’s too painful, Snooky. Too fresh. I can’t talk about it.”

  “Try.”

  “Okay.” The chair squeaked as she sat back in it. She took off one of her scarves, a filmy beige chiffon, and looped it around her head several times. “He was a doctor.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I met him in the hospital.”

  “Why were you in the hospital?”

  “Visiting a friend who had just given birth to the most adorable little girl you ever saw. Peaches and cream complexion, not at all like the scrawny red apelike things you usually see in photos. An angelic infant. Lay in her mother’s arms and looked around peacefully while we visited.”

  “Sounds drugged.”

  “Oh, no, no, sweetie, you don’t know my friend. No drugs. Nothing like that. Nothing at all, not even Demerol. Forty-two hours of natural labor.”

  “How did your friend look?”

  “Radiant.”

  “I’m quite sure that’s not true.”

  “All right. Terrible. But the infant was gorgeous. Wasn’t I supposed to be telling you about Harold?”

  “Go on.”

  “Harold was her baby’s pediatrician. Wouldn’t you think that would make him a nice person? A baby doctor.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “He came in to check out Alissa while I was there. I don’t know why all newborn girls seem to be named Alissa or Elissa or Elyssa, you know, with a y, these days,” Weezy said fretfully. “It seems ridiculous.”

  “They should all be named Louise.”

  “Yes, and the boys should all be named Arthur. Anyway, he came in and looked the baby over, and talked to my friend, and somehow we got to talking, and after the visit was over he walked me to my car and asked me out. That was the beginning of the end.”

  “What did Harold look like?”

  “A tall, dashing person. The kind I like. Dark hair, handsome features, a wonderful nose.”

  “A wonderful nose?”

  “Roman. I itched to draw it. Dark eyes, fair skin. Wonderfully good-looking. After years of dating trolls, it was such a relief to be able to go out in public again.”

  “Trolls?”

  “Oh, yes. Trolls.”

  “And then?”

  “We went out for over a year. Such a sad end to a beautiful time together. Of course, we never did get along. We fought like cats and dogs. He was just divorced, and I think he was still a bit in love with his ex-wife. I was the rebound person, you know, the one they use up and throw away, like Kleenex. Eventually, of course—and how could I not have seen it coming, I ask myself—he met somebody else and left me for her. She was better for him, he said. Much more compatible. Well, as I told him, the Monster of the Black Lagoon would have been more compatible with him than I was. I mean, we fought constantly. But I was heartbroken. I’m still not over it. I may never get over it.”

  “A year is not exactly wasting your youth, Weeze.”

  “It’s wasting a year of it.”

  “Is this Harold why you moved out of Manhattan?”

  “I don’t think so. Not entirely. I had had it with the city. So noisy, so dirty. People everywhere, the traffic, the car horns, the filth. It got unbearable, especially after Harold left.”

  “Are there any eligible men in Ridgewood?”

  “I told you, sweetie. There are no more eligible men anywhere. It’s a lost breed, a lost breed. The rest are all trolls. Deformed creatures from the bowels of the earth.”

  “As a man, speaking for my kind, I must object.”

  “It’s true, I’m telling you. I’ve given up hope. I’ll always be the bridesmaid, never the bride. Maya got the last good man.”

  “Now I really must object.”

  “It’s so depressing, Snooky. I’m going to have to turn inward and get into meditation and find inward peace, all that shit.” Weezy brooded over this. “I’ll be one of those old ladies in Zen centers with gray hair sticking out of their ears, chanting and swaying. You know what I’m saying.”

  “Nothing wrong with Zen centers. I lived in one for a while.”

  “There are no good men left.”

  “I sense a theme to this conversation. How’s your work?”

  “Well, I have to say at least that’s going well. I’m doing a show in the city a couple of months from now. It’s quiet here, it’s good for my work. I can hear the birds singing in the morning. I can go out on my deck at night and look at the moon. I’ve been painting like mad, except, of course, when I’m working on the nursery.”

  “Maya tells me you’ve become famous.”

  Weezy smiled smugly. “The article?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it was fun, I won’t deny that. My two seconds of fame. And it didn’t hurt my career one bit. Frankly, I think this show in New York came out of it. The gallery owner said he had seen the article in the Times.”

  “Maya also told me that you’ve been getting some strange phone calls. There are a lot of nuts out there, you know. She says she’s a little worried about you.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  “Maya is my best friend in the whole wide world. But just between the two of us, she worries too much. I pick up the phone and there’s nobody on the other end, is that something to get flustered about? When I lived in Manhattan I risked my life just walking out on the street.”

  “How often has it happened?”

  “I don’t know. Four or five times, maybe.”

  “Does the line sound dead, or is somebody there but not saying anything?”

  Weezy chewed her lip. “Well, I must admit it sounds like somebody’s there. I say ‘hello’ a couple of times, and then I hang up. I figure if it’s important and I couldn’t hear them, they’ll call back.”

  “But they never have.”

  “No. Is that really a cause for alarm? Maybe there’s a faulty wire in the line or something.”

  “That’s what I told Maya.”

  “There, you see. Great minds.” Weezy glanced at her watch. “Oh, my God, I have to get going. I’m teaching these days, you know. I have a class of art students starting in half an hour.”

  “That’s nice. You taught in Manhattan, too, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. This class is culled from my best students in New York, so it’s fun. Well, at least it’s supposed to be. That’s the theory behind it, that it’s a wonderfully rewarding experience for all concerned. That’s what we’re all pretending is happening.” She grimaced slightly.

  “It’s not wonderfully rewarding?”

  “Well, they’re artists, you know, Snooky. Artists. Touchy, flighty, unpredictable. Difficult to work with. The truth is, I discovered long ago that I hate all artists except for myself.”

  “So do I.”

  “Thank you. We artists are the lowest form of life on earth.”

  “That would make male artists the lowest of the low, I suppose.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I have one in my class who’s a doll. A living doll. Difficult as hell, of course, but still a doll. Maybe you’ll meet him, now that you’re in town for a while. How long are you planning to stick around for, anyway?”

  “As long as possible. Maya needs me. Bernard seems to have no i
dea at all what he’s doing, taking care of her.”

  “Mysterious how they function so well in your absence, isn’t it?” asked Weezy kindly.

  “I don’t understand how anyone functions at all in my absence.”

  “We limp by, Snooky. We limp by.”

  “Will you invite me over sometime to sit on your deck and drink your liquor?”

  “Maybe. It’s possible.”

  “I like gazing at the moon, too, you know. I’m a moon-gazer at heart. We have so much in common, Weezy. I really think you should reconsider what I’ve said.”

  Weezy patted him on the cheek. “Spend your time looking for your little chickadoo. And tell Maya I’ll give her a call later. Tell her I hope she feels better.”

  Then she was gone, in a blaze of red chiffon.

  TWO

  “WHEN YOU said you were going to sit on my deck and drink my liquor, I didn’t fully realize how often you were going to sit here or how much you were going to drink,” Weezy said.

  “Surely a few glasses of wine isn’t too much to ask?”

  “Not of this wine, Snooky. It’s Chassagne-Montrachet. Thirty-five dollars a bottle.”

  “I thought it was awfully good.”

  “You shouldn’t have served it to him,” said Maya. “He can drink like a fish and never show it.”

  “Drunk on life,” said Snooky. “Drunk on life. Can I have one more glass of that indescribably delicious wine before you take it away?”

  Weezy relented. “Well … because it’s you.”

  They were sitting on Weezy’s deck after dinner. The moon was in full view, hanging like a solemn eye in the night sky above them. It was early spring, and there was a chill breeze. Maya sat wrapped in several warm sweaters and scarves, a round bundle in her Adirondack chair. Snooky wore a blue scarf knotted loosely around his neck. Bernard, who never felt the cold, was in his shirt sleeves. He was sitting immobile, his head lolling back.

  “I hate to say this, but I think your husband is asleep,” said Weezy.

  “He is asleep.”

  “He passed out as soon as he sat down,” observed Snooky.

  “I’m not surprised,” said Weezy. “Did you see what he ate for dessert?”