“Is Stanley writing your material now?” said Vincent. “How’s Holly?”
Guido felt a resurgence of despair. “She’s wonderful. I’m terrible. I feel as if I had been flattened by a truck, but she’s as adaptable as a thermostat. She says she wants to move. She said something last night about the artifacts of stasis.”
“What’s that?”
“I have no idea. When she gets like that, I never know what she’s talking about. On every other subject she’s as clear as glass. I can’t talk about it. All I know is that she’s back.”
“Remember when we were young and everyone used to think that women were emotional?” said Vincent. “I wonder what lucky person thought that one up. It’s awful when you realize that the way things used to be is boring but the way things are is altogether strange. All the girls I used to know seem like chaff, but I’m beginning to think a swooning woman might be very attractive.”
“By that I expect you mean that your friend Misty is giving you a hard time,” Guido said.
“If you mean, is she attacking me, she isn’t, but she’s hardly giving me a break. I know she doesn’t find me ape-like and repellent, but I can’t find out how else she finds me. She’s a clam. Oh, what the hell. I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
“Why don’t you stick your head in a coal stove?” said Guido. “It saves time.”
“I love her,” said Vincent. “And I’m certain that she loves me. She won’t tell me because she says I don’t deserve to know. But I’m positive she does.”
“Isn’t life simple?” said Guido, bitterly.
“In the old days,” said Vincent, “I’d pop the question and she’d say yes and then we’d go and do it. Then we’d settle down and live our lives like normal people.”
“What makes you think you’re normal?” said Guido. “Besides, in the old days, there weren’t any Hollys or Mistys. Our trouble is that we don’t know how things are supposed to be anymore.”
“I don’t care,” said Vincent. “I’m going to proceed on the assumption that things are the way they’re supposed to be and I’m going to ask Misty if she wants to marry me.”
“You barely know her,” said Guido.
“So what?” Vincent said. “And you’re a fine one to talk. You hardly had a long engagement. Besides, you’re the one who said that when you’re right, you’re right. So now I’m right.”
“I’ll send you the name of a good lawyer as a wedding present,” said Guido. “But before you propose, please thank her for sending Stanley to me.”
“I will,” said Vincent. “But why before?”
“You might not want to talk to her after she’s turned you down,” Guido said.
Misty sat in her office staring at the pear she had bought for her lunch. It was a hard, unripe little Seckel pear and the thought of eating it upset her. The thought of doing anything upset her. She sat reflecting on the civil war between her character and personality. One had trapped the other. Her character, she decided, was like the tender stomach of a porcupine and her personality was a bunch of quills. When the porcupine is frightened, she knew, it rolls itself up into a ball to protect its vulnerable stomach from harm. The enemy does not know how soft the porcupine is inside; only the porcupine does.
How happy Vincent would have been to know how often she thought of him, how secretly she doted on him. When she thought of the passionate way he sometimes looked at her, she felt a hot wave of love in the vicinity of what Vincent called her “vestigial heart.”
She did not understand how he endured her, yet he did. Perhaps in his militant optimism, he looked through those barbs and saw what she was making such a feeble but desperate effort to protect. Perhaps he would get sick of it and go away. Perhaps she would have to knuckle under and reveal herself.
In the midst of these reflections, she looked up to find Maria Teresa Warner staring at her.
“My, you look terrible,” said Maria Teresa. “I came in to ask you if you had any interest in a cheap lunch.”
“I’m off my feed,” said Misty.
“What an indelicate turn of phrase,” said Maria Teresa. “You look as if you’re off any number of things. I think I’ll have to drag you out of here. You look like your own shroud.”
Misty allowed herself to be dragged off to a coffee shop around the corner. She and Maria Teresa were now frequent lunch companions. It was a relief to Misty to be bullied. Maria Teresa forced her to order a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
“See?” said Maria Teresa. “You were starving. Now, what’s wrong with you? Does this have to do with Vincent Cardworthy?”
“What do you mean?” mumbled Misty.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” said Maria Teresa. “It’s perfectly clear. Don’t look so alarmed. I have an unfailing eye for these things. No one else would notice. You two are far too delicate and cagey. Of course, you can’t fool a delicate and cagey type like me. What gives?”
“Nothing,” said Misty.
“What a terrible liar you are,” said Maria Teresa. “He’s in love with you, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Misty. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes, we have to talk about this,” said Maria Teresa. “And why not? You’re the only person around here I can stand to talk to. So. He loves you but you don’t love him, right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Misty, pushing the crumbs from her sandwich around on her plate.
“That’s very attractive,” said Maria Teresa. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to make abstract drawings out of your food? So, he loves you and you can’t stand him.”
“I can’t talk about this,” said Misty.
“Oh, my God. You’re about to cry. Here, take this napkin, but don’t shred it. I’m awfully sorry. I thought it would do you good to talk.”
“It will,” said Misty. “I don’t hate him. I don’t despise him. I just don’t want him to know how I feel.”
“You don’t? Why not?”
“I mean, I don’t want to have it out on the table until I’m sure of what I’m doing. I don’t want him to love me. I don’t want to love him. I want to be left alone.”
“My, my,” said Maria Teresa. “I do admire your distance. If someone loved me, I’d probably pay him. You know what St. Teresa of Ávila said? She said: ‘It must be in my nature, for anyone who gave me so much as a sardine could obtain anything from me.’ What a pillar of strength you are.”
“You don’t take this seriously,” said Misty. “Well, I do. I just don’t get it. Why me? I’m not his type.”
“Perhaps he sees into the beauty of your immortal soul.”
“I don’t have an immortal soul,” said Misty. “I just don’t understand what makes him so sure he loves me.”
“St. Teresa said: ‘When I desire something, I am accustomed naturally to desire it with some vehemence.’ Maybe Vincent feels the same way.”
“Maybe he does. But why me?”
“Well, this may overstep the bounds of our friendship, but here’s what I think. I think you’re in love with him and you’re frightened.”
“Is that a revelation from St. Teresa of Ávila?” Misty said.
“Horse sense,” said Maria Teresa. “I got it from a horse.”
Misty crumbled her napkin into a little ball.
“Please don’t throw that,” said Maria Teresa, taking the crumpled napkin out of Misty’s hand. “And don’t start drawing on the table with sugar. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Maybe,” said Misty.
“So what’s your problem? You should be as happy as a little bird. I like Cardworthy. I wouldn’t mind getting a couple of sardines from him. Why can’t you just be glad?”
“I can’t stand to do anything without a fight,” said Misty.
That afternoon, after work, Misty met Stanley in the park. She was exhausted. He was full of energy.
“Working really wires you up,” he said. “But not in a hysterical wa
y. That Guido is a decent dude.”
Misty was considerably Stanley’s senior, but they fit together like a pair of old shoes. They were not precisely close—they were used to each other. This gave Misty a younger person to bully and Stanley an older woman to talk to. Stanley was having romantic problems. He had spent the summer trying to entice a girl named Sybel Klinger to share his sublet with him. She had not consented but Stanley was still trying.
Sybel was a modern dancer who also studied mime. She was a vegetarian and took a brand of vitamin pills that could be obtained only in New Jersey. When not at mime or dance class, or arguing with Stanley about whether or not she would hang her leotards in his closet, Sybel concentrated on her mental and spiritual well-being. Once a week she saw a psychiatrist who believed that all mental distress had its origin in posture. He had recommended that Sybel use the Oriental martial arts as a method of coming to grips with herself. Two nights a week she studied Kendo. One afternoon a week was devoted to T’ai chi. Sybel meditated before each meal and before going to bed. On Saturday afternoons, she sat for three hours with her meditation group. Due to this overcommitted schedule, Sybel’s time with Stanley was limited. This was his most compelling argument for her moving in, although Misty could not understand how her cousin could live with such a person and survive. But Stanley’s apartment was cluttered with Sybel’s possessions—her tatty leg warmers, her numerous bottles of vitamin pills, her jars of kelp, soybean paste, and brown rice. The three-pound leg weights she walked around in to strengthen her calves were hanging over the bedroom doorknob.
The time they spent together was taken up in large part by looking for a restaurant in which Sybel might eat. Walking into an ordinary restaurant was as good as drinking a bottle of poison to Sybel, and her schedule prevented her from shopping for the chewy vegetables she craved.
But it was not Sybel that Misty had come to discuss. Misty was sick of Sybel. She had been sick of hearing about her and one meeting had made her thoroughly sick of Sybel altogether. Sybel had heavy brown hair worn in a braid down the back of her head. She looked moist and dewy and wore smocks. Her whispery voice had a smug, stubborn edge to it that made Misty long to kick her.
What Misty wanted to talk about was Vincent. She wanted to with some reluctance. It is annoying to want your younger cousin’s impressions of your beloved, especially when your younger cousin’s girlfriend is a simp.
“Boy, I’d like to get a hot dog,” said Stanley. “Sybel would kill me. She says you can tell if a person has been eating meat. She says they ought to put a skull and crossbones on packages of hot dogs. That sorta takes the fun out of it.”
“Stanley,” said Misty. “Sit down on this bench and tell me what you think of Vincent.”
They sat down on the bench under a streetlight.
“Why do we have to sit here in the cold?” said Stanley. “Why can’t we go someplace nice and warm and eat meat and talk about this?”
“Sit down and shut up,” said Misty. “This is serious.”
“Well,” said Stanley. “I like him a lot. I mean, viscerally. He’s real smart. Of course, he likes you a lot, so maybe he’s not so smart.”
“Do you think I should marry him?”
“Did he ask you? Or did you ask him?”
“It hasn’t been mentioned,” said Misty.
“So what’s the big deal?” said Stanley.
“It’s going to be mentioned.”
“Yeah, well, when it does, give me a call.”
“Stanley, you are a self-absorbed pig.”
“No, I’m not. I’m your cousin. I don’t know. Do you love him and all that?”
“That’s none of your business,” said Misty.
“Geez, Misto. You sure are strange. You ask my advice and then you won’t even say if you love him. If he’s dumb enough to put up with you, you should marry him. Guys like him don’t grow on trees. At least not in this park. What’d you ask me for, anyway?”
“Because you’re family,” said Misty.
“Oh, yeah? I thought you wanted my opinion because I’m a genius.”
Misty was silent. She sat hunched on the park bench looking lost. Stanley put a fatherly arm around her.
“Come on, Misto. Everything’s going to be all right,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go to one of those grimy restaurants and eat hamburgers.”
In the weeks they had been back together, Holly had mentioned someone named Arnold Milgrim several times. She neither explained nor described him, which led Guido to suspect that he was an established fact of Holly’s life—for example, a current or former lover. But when Holly began to refer to him with a certain reverence in her voice, Guido imagined that Arnold Milgrim was someone universally known and respected, and not Holly’s lover after all.
One morning, he could endure it no longer. He looked menacingly at Holly and menacingly at the coffeepot.
“Pour me some of that Arnold Milgrim,” he said.
Holly then explained that Arnold Milgrim had been a student of her grandfather’s and that she had met him on her recent trip to France. He taught philosophy at Oxford on loan from Yale and was the author of The Decay of Language as Meaning, The Automatic Memory, and Fishing in the Waters of Time, which was about Marxist literature.
As the day progressed, it seemed to Guido that he was the sole citizen of New York who had not heard of Arnold Milgrim. Vincent had seen Arnold Milgrim on television in England. Stanley had once read The Automatic Memory. Finally, Guido broke down and called Misty, who said that she had read The Decay of Language as Meaning and found it provocative, but basically silly.
Then the subject was dropped. Guido persuaded Holly not to move, but to redecorate. The artifacts of stasis were to be dispelled by a series of painters, plasterers, and paperhangers who were scheduled to invade the apartment. In the evening, Guido was presented with large numbers of paint, fabric, and wallpaper samples. He and Holly sat at the dining room table planning, making sketches, and matching one color with another, or else they repaired to whichever room was the subject at hand and shoved furniture around.
After this collaborative effort, they lived under drop cloths for several weeks. Holly directed her attention to the workmen whom she bullied, cajoled, flattered, and flirted with. She made them pots of coffee and Italian sandwiches. As a result, not so much as a spot of paint marred the floors. The paperhangers were put into a state of awe and terror at the sight of her. The plasterer vacuumed up at the end of each day’s work. Guido realized that his wife would have made an extremely efficient dictator.
Soft coats of unnecessary white paint were spread on the walls, except for the dining room, which at Guido’s suggestion was pale apple green with white trim. Four Peruvians appeared to scrape, stain, and wax the floors. The Persian rugs came back from the cleaners. Two boys who looked a little like Stanley showed up and fixed the kitchen by building an ingenious counter and putting up some chic and useful shelves.
Finally, the last drop cloth was taken up. The rooms no longer smelled of paint and the curtains swung immaculately in the cold breeze.
One Saturday morning, the mail contained a heavy, cream-colored envelope addressed to Holly. It looked like a wedding invitation, but it was a letter from Arnold Milgrim announcing that he was coming to New York with one of his students. Holly immediately fired off a reply, inviting Arnold and his student for dinner.
Guido examined the envelope. It was embossed with the seal of Arnold Milgrim’s college.
“Terrific paper,” he said. “We should have done the hallway in it. Spear me another of those Arnold Milgrims.” Holly absently dropped on his uplifted plate an Irish sausage.
Arnold Milgrim appeared on a Tuesday evening with his student, a girl whose toast-colored hair was so tenuously arranged that Guido was afraid to shake hands with her. Her name was Doria Mathers.
Arnold Milgrim was a small, muscular man. His suit looked as if it had been reduced to scale to fit a box turtle. He wore small,
polished loafers and socks that were the deep red of arterial blood. He was bald and his face had the naked, political sensuality seen on the busts of Roman generals.
Doria Mathers was taller by a head and she looked extremely sleepy. She wore a long plum-colored dress and stockings that matched Arnold’s socks. Both she and Arnold wore round, pink glasses.
By the time drinks were finished, Arnold had given Guido a chapter of his new book for Runnymeade. Doria, on the other hand, had hardly spoken. She did not raise her eyes from the sight of her own knees, but she was hardly a quiet presence. Later she said: “I fill my own space with a kind of inaudible loudness.”
Guido sat next to her in front of the fireplace, filling her glass from time to time and wondering if a new form of communication had been invented without his knowing about it. On the other side of the room, Arnold chatted energetically to Holly.
“Doria is my most extraordinary student. She’s American, you know. American universities didn’t seem able to hold her. The sheer power of her mind oppresses her. In another age, she would have been a mystic, but in our mercantile era she is merely a genius. I have never seen anyone so overwhelmed by internal intelligence.”
Holly looked over at Doria, who was silently communing with Guido. Something indeed seemed to have overwhelmed her—she could barely lift her head. At dinner, Doria uttered one complete sentence. She said: “I feel that jet lag is the disease most appropriate to the second half of the twentieth century.”
That said, she bent her head and took tiny bites of her quiche Lorraine, the dish Holly felt was correct to serve to people who have been on transatlantic flights.
As the evening wore on, Doria began to unravel. She took off her shoes, which lay one on top of the other under the coffee table. Her tenuous hair arrangement had begun to dissolve and hung sagging but stylish at the back of her neck. Her dress, which was more like an extremely long sweater, pulled to one side, revealing her white shoulder. Holly, whose neatness was like the sheen on an Oriental pearl, could see that there was quite a lot to be said for dishevelment.
Happy All the Time Page 10
