The Misfortunes of Others

by Gloria Dank

  “I thought it was very nice of them,” said Weezy. “I’d like to get out of this house.”

  Snooky caught a glimpse of the mulish expression on her face as she bent over the suitcase. “Oh. I see. Okay. Do you think they’d like lasagna tonight, or shepherd’s pie?”

  Bernard had thought that it would be nauseating to see Snooky and Weezy together under his roof, but since they acted just as they always had, with no sign of their changed relationship except a few shared jokes and the fact that they retired to one bedroom at night instead of two, he gradually began to relax. This was easy to do in the happy postprandial haze induced by Snooky’s cooking. After a few days, it was as if the four of them had been together always.

  “It’s not so bad, is it?” asked Maya one night, when she and Bernard were reading in bed.

  “Weezy and Snooky?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No.” Bernard turned a page.

  “I mean, we hate having company, but if you’re going to have company, they’re the best around.”

  Bernard grunted.

  “I’m going downstairs to get something to eat. I’ll be right back,” said Maya, throwing off the covers.

  “Didn’t you just have a snack?”

  “Yes, I did, Bernard. Why? Do you have some kind of problem with that?”

  “No.”

  “I’m pregnant. I’m supposed to eat as much as I want.”

  “Good, good.”

  “I’m feeding your precious offspring, okay?”

  “Yes, yes, okay.”

  “Want anything from the kitchen?”

  Bernard was always in the mood for a snack. “Bring me some of those whole-wheat crackers Snooky bought the other day.”

  “Okay.”

  “And some peanut butter.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And a little bit of jelly.”

  “Blackberry or cherry?”

  “Blackberry.”

  “Okay.”

  “And don’t forget the cream cheese!” he bellowed after her as she went down the stairs.

  Maya returned ten minutes later with a laden tray of goodies.

  “Bernard, you should talk about what I eat. Look at you,” she said, watching him shovel it down. “You’re going to gain as much as I am.”

  “Mhmmmhmmm,” said Bernard, his mouth full of crackers.

  “I mean, this is ridiculous. How dare you say anything about my food consumption?” She spread a cracker thickly with peanut butter and cream cheese, and stuck it in her mouth. “How dare you?”

  “Mmmhmhmxmhxmmjm,” explained Bernard, gesturing.

  “What? Well, I don’t care. You have no right to talk to me that way.” Maya rubbed her abdomen fretfully. “I’m starving all the time.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s an uncomfortable feeling.”

  “I know.” Bernard was normally hungry all the time. He gave her a sympathetic glance.

  “I feel bloated.”

  “Mmm-hmmmm.”

  “Weird things are happening all over my body. I feel out of control, Bernard. I feel like I’ve been taken over by an alien organism.” Maya was near tears. She crammed a cracker angrily into her mouth. “It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.”

  “And now I can’t even fit into my jeans. I have to wear those stupid maternity pants.” Maya had taken to wearing black stretch pants and enormously oversized sweaters, culled from Bernard’s wardrobe. Bernard thought she looked very nice in them, and said so.

  “You know I think you look terrific.”

  “Oh, I know, I know,” said Maya, in a tone which clearly conveyed to him that she didn’t care. She fiddled absently with her peanut butter knife. “I just feel so … I don’t know … so helpless, somehow. I feel like I don’t live in my own body anymore, somebody else does. It’s so busy building somebody else’s body that it doesn’t have time for me anymore.” She burst into tears. “It’s a horrible feeling.”

  “Now, now.” Bernard hugged her awkwardly over the crumb-filled tray. “Now, now, sweetheart. I know it’s hard. Everybody says it’s hard.”

  “Who, Bernard? Who says it’s hard? Nobody does, everybody just idealizes it into this perfect experience. Nobody talks about this sense I have of being taken over by an alien being. Do they? No, they don’t. Am I the only one? Am I the only person who’s ever felt this way? Am I all alone in the universe?”

  Bernard regarded her lovingly. “Now, you know the answer to that.”

  “Oh, I guess so.” Maya raked her fingers through her hair and moved over to snuggle against his shoulder. “I guess so. I’m sorry I’m so horrible already, and it’s only the second trimester. Can you imagine where I’ll be by the seventh or eighth month?”

  Bernard couldn’t imagine. He kissed the top of her head and offered her a cracker with cream cheese and jelly.

  Upstairs, in Snooky’s tiny third-floor bedroom under the eaves, another conversation was taking place.

  “Beautiful view you have here,” Weezy said. She was sitting up in bed, wearing a long pink nightgown and leaning her elbows on the windowsill. The window was open to the warm May night and the moon shone bright yellow overhead. The light streamed in, making the edges and planes of her face look mysterious, illuminating her wild hair in an aureole. “Look at that moon.”

  “Something, isn’t it?” Snooky propped the pillows up behind him. “Full tonight.”

  “When I was younger,” Weezy said dreamily, “much younger, about your age, let’s say, I used to open all the windows on a night like this and paint by the light of the moon. The moon changes all the colors, it’s wonderful, you can’t tell what the hell you’re doing. Everything looks completely different. I used to go crazy and paint and paint and paint. In the morning my roommates would find me asleep with the paintbrush in my hand, surrounded by all these crazy drawings.”

  “And how would they look by daylight?”

  “Oh.” Weezy gave a low laugh. “Psychotic, really. Not much sense to them. But sometimes the colors would be wonderful. And I could never get over the difference between day and night, looking at them.”

  Snooky shook his head, his eyes riveted on the pale orb floating overhead. “That’s something, Weezy.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It was pretentious, really. I was convinced it showed how wild and creative I was.”

  “When I was younger and there was a full moon, I used to stand in front of William’s door and howl. I was convinced that showed how wild and creative I was. Used to drive him nuts. And when I was in college, I would get into a car with a bunch of other guys and go around trying to pick up women. Our theory was that since people go crazy at the time of the full moon, maybe they would go out with us.”

  “I see. The biorhythmically-deranged dating theory?”

  “Exactly.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “Do you feel like flinging open all the windows—well, there’s only two in this room—and painting till dawn?”

  “No.” Her voice went curiously flat. “I don’t feel like painting at all anymore. With everything that’s going on … I don’t feel like it.”

  He nodded. “I was wondering if you were working these days.”

  “No. Not a bit. The only time I pick up a brush is in class.”

  He looked at her face, beautiful and serene in profile, like a Renaissance goddess with fiery hair burning on her shoulders and curling over her arms. Weezy turned to him, her face a pattern of light and dark, lovely and mysterious.

  “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I keep waiting for the next letter,” she said patiently, as if explaining something to an idiot child. “The next one. You don’t seriously think whoever it is is going to stop now, do you? Now that they’re on a roll?”

  “There doesn’t have to be another one, Weezy.”

  She shrugged again, lightly. “I don’t know. I don’t h
ave a good feeling about it, that’s all.” She drew with her fingertip on the windowsill. “I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

  Snooky nodded. He tightened his grip around her waist. Weezy smiled at him faintly, then propped her elbows on the windowsill again and gazed out at the moondrenched night.

  The second letter came three days later.

  Weezy had gone home to check on the house, water her plants and pick up the mail. She came back looking wan and frightened, and handed Snooky the letter.

  “Oh, God,” he said, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down.

  “I couldn’t open it,” she said. “I saw the gold letters and thought I was going to throw up.”

  He nodded. The outside looked exactly the same as before: the Manhattan postmark, the shiny golden letters spelling out Weezy’s name and address. Snooky tore it open.

  YOU THINK YOU ARE SUCH A BIG DEAL YOU THINK YOU ARE SUCH A GREAT ARTIST IM JUST AS GOOD AS YOU IM BETTER I DONT KNOW WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE TRYING TO IMPRESS EVERYBODY

  The color drained out of Weezy’s face as she read it. “I want it to stop, Snooky. I just want it to stop.”

  He was reading it over again, grimly. “I know.”

  “Somebody hates me, and I don’t know who or even why!” Her voice ended on a long wail.

  “ ‘I’m just as good as you,’ ” Snooky read out loud. His eyes met hers. “Now who could possibly think that?”

  She shrugged miserably. At that moment Bernard came into the kitchen with his coffee cup in his hand. He paused when he saw their faces.

  “Should I go away?”

  In reply, Snooky held out the letter.

  Bernard took it and read it through impassively. When he was done, he folded it and handed it back.

  “Well?” demanded Snooky.

  “Well, what?”

  “Any thoughts?”

  “Yes,” said Bernard, going to the stove and pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Whoever did it must have bought a lot of those alphabet sets. There aren’t that many letters in just one set, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Weezy leaned her head in one hand. She laughed shakily. “Thank you, Bernard. Always the unique point of view.”

  “Childlike,” said Bernard.

  “What? Your reaction?”

  “No, no. The letters. Childlike, and spiteful. Like a jealous kid. Part of the same pattern as all the others.”

  “Yes,” said Snooky, much struck by this. “That’s true. That’s certainly true.”

  Bernard added cream and three sugars to his coffee and stirred it thoughtfully, looking out the kitchen window to the woods behind the house.

  “Who thinks you’re trying to impress everybody, Weezy?”

  She spread her hands in a gesture of bewilderment. “I have no idea. I told my students about the magazine interview because I thought it could help them. I never talked about my exhibit or anything else in front of them. Never!”

  “But they knew you were going to have a show.”

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly. “Yes, but beyond that we never discussed it. Frankly, they weren’t that interested. Even Elmo, if it doesn’t concern him directly he doesn’t give a damn.”

  “Which of them thinks they’re better than you?”

  “Well … Alice, I guess,” she said slowly. “But to be honest, she is. I don’t need a letter to tell me that. The same for Elmo, he’s a genius. Not the others, unless they’ve totally flipped out. I mean … well, that didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean. They’re not all puffed up about themselves.” She fell silent, wringing her hands together.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not sure about anything anymore. All I know is that I want it to stop. I want to get on with my life and my work and not have to be looking over my shoulder, scared to death that somebody will trash my paintings or send me this kind of letter or hurt me.”

  Bernard nodded, gazing out the window. Snooky took the letter gingerly, as if he were handling a scorpion, and stuffed it back into the envelope. There was a long, heavy silence.

  “I’m going to disband the class,” said Weezy, with decision. “I can’t stand it any longer. I don’t have to tell them about these letters. I’ll just say that it’s getting too volatile in there, too frightening, and it’s hurting everyone’s work. I’ll say I’m going to wait and get a few more students, maybe dilute the mix a little bit, make everybody happier.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Bernard.

  “And if you don’t mind, I’ll stay here a few more days. I feel safe here, somehow.”

  “Absolutely. As long as you want.”

  “Don’t tell Maya about this new letter, it’ll upset her too much,” said Weezy. “She shouldn’t see it, with the baby and all.”

  “That’s nice of you, Weezy, but it’s not necessary. Maya can handle it.”

  “Oh, no, no, men don’t understand. Maya is like a finely tuned racehorse coming down the home stretch with this pregnancy, I don’t want anything to get in her way.”

  “I wouldn’t call the second trimester exactly coming down the home stretch,” said Bernard.

  “Well, whatever. Now, remember what I said, both of you. Nobody breathes a word of this to Maya.”

  They promised.

  Weezy’s resolve lasted until Maya came home from shopping, a few hours later.

  “Hi,” she said, hanging up her coat. “How’re you doing?”

  Weezy burst into tears. “Look at this!” She held up the letter, waving it in front of Maya’s face. “I got another one, Maya! Another one!”

  “What?”

  “Another one!” cried Weezy, and fell into her best friend’s arms.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Snooky said later. “You held out until she actually asked how you were doing. Never mind that it was a rhetorical question.”

  Weezy was picking disconsolately at the cherry pie left over from dessert. They were seated alone at the great mahogany dining room table, Maya and Bernard having excused themselves after a late dinner and gone up to bed. “Oh, I’m disgusted with myself. But what can you do, it’s Maya’s fault, really. She’s so sympathetic. Just the way she said, ‘Hi, how are you?’ totally unhinged me.”

  “Listen, I have an idea.” Snooky leaned forward and gathered her hands in his. “Why don’t we go away together? Don’t say no immediately,” he said when he saw the doubt in her face. “You don’t have anything keeping you here any longer. You’re going to stop teaching for a while, and God knows you could use getting away. I thought we could go to the islands together. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen my friends’ place on St. Martin.”

  “Go away? I don’t know, Snooky … gee, I haven’t even thought …”

  “Big modern place, painted pink, with floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere. Kind of glows at sunset. You can walk from the living room down to their private beach. I spent most of my time drinking rum and swimming.”

  “Sounds nice,” she said wistfully.

  “They’d love to have you. They have about a zillion guest rooms, the place is so big they can never fill it up. And they’re isolated there, really, it’s an act of charity to go visit them and give them some company. Peter and Nancy, you’ll love them, they’re old friends of mine.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’re dying for company. Out in this paradise of theirs.”

  “They are, they are, they’re bored to tears. They’re perfect hosts—I mean, not to say a word against Maya and Bernard, but you don’t have to lift a finger while you’re there, they provide food and drinks and then leave you alone. It’s great.”

  She twiddled a curl of hair between her fingers. “I don’t know. Maybe. It … it sounds nice. Relaxing.”

  “Relaxing. Relaxing is the word, sweetheart. Relaxing, and far, far away from here.”

  She nodded. Her face had a tired, anxious expression on it. “Well …” she said doubtfully.

  “Say yes.”

  She lif
ted her chin decisively. “Yes. Why not?”

  “Good. I’ll call Peter and Nancy and get the tickets. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Are you crazy? I can’t get away, I have a class tomorrow. I can’t tell them I’m stopping class over the phone,” she said in response to his look. “Don’t be stupid. I thought I would tell them tomorrow.”

  “All right. We leave the next day, then.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “The next day? Get a grip on yourself, sweetie. We can’t invite ourselves that soon.”

  “Watch me,” he said, and picked up the phone.

  “You can’t stop teaching!” cried Alice, distressed, when Weezy broke the news.

  “Not forever, Alice, just for a little while.”

  “Well, how long?”

  “I don’t know,” Weezy said truthfully. “I need a break. I … I have some things going on in my personal life that are upsetting me, and I need some time to myself.”

  She hadn’t planned to tell the truth, but confronted with their shocked faces she had felt it impossible to do anything else. Now she twisted her hands unhappily. This was harder than she had anticipated. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I can give you the names of some people in New York you can study with for a while.” She gave a faint smile. “It might do you good to study with somebody else, you know. All of you. A different point of view.”

  “Some things in your personal life?” Alice repeated, as if she had not heard beyond that point.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Snooky suddenly found himself the focus of four hostile gazes. Mrs. Castor was the only one smiling. He swallowed and looked away.

  “Hmmm,” said Alice sourly. She turned back to Weezy. “Will you—will you call us when you’re ready to teach again?”

  “Of course I will.” Weezy was delighted with this apparent capitulation, just where she had expected the most resistance. She looked around the class. “Of course I will.”

  Elmo had crossed his arms, his biceps bulging, and was staring at her with a frown on his face. “You don’t have to leave, Weezy. You could get rid of what’s bothering you easily.” He shot a look towards the back of the room, at Alice. “Easily!”