After the Reunion

by Rona Jaffe

He looked at her in surprised distress. “You want to divorce me?”

  “Yes. Now you can be with Melissa full time,” Daphne said with a tiny smile. She couldn’t believe she was acting so cool and in control, but inside she felt dead so all this came easily.

  His face paled, just slightly. “I can’t believe you would divorce me because of one little meaningless affair.”

  “I doubt Melissa thinks it’s meaningless,” Daphne said. “And anyway, that’s not the reason I’m divorcing you.”

  “But you love me.”

  Daphne smiled.

  “It was a lapse,” Richard said. “These things happen. I’m not perfect.”

  “Neither am I,” Daphne said.

  They sat there looking at each other for a long time in silence.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “A divorce.”

  “And what else?”

  “The house. You’ll be better off in an apartment in New York anyway. Child support, of course. The boys’ tuition. Elizabeth’s home.”

  “You’re asking for a lot.”

  “My lawyer will discuss it with yours.”

  “You have your own money,” Richard said. “A great deal as I recall.”

  “I’m not asking you to pay my bills. The house is paid for. The boys need a place to live. So does our daughter, even though she’s not with us. They all deserve an education. Consider it a settlement.”

  “A settlement for what?” Richard said. “For my affair?”

  “For my life,” Daphne said.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “What did I ever do to you?”

  Poor Richard. She thought of all the good times, their youth, their love. They had created their own make-believe world; eroded bit by bit, and finally simply collapsing under the weight of truth. Poor Richard. Poor Daphne. Poor Jonathan. Poor all of them.

  “I did it to me, too,” Daphne said quietly. “And no, you don’t understand.”

  He left two days later. He moved into a hotel. He said it would be inappropriate to move in with Melissa, but Daphne suspected he wasn’t ready either for a commitment or for a hard-working young lawyer’s small apartment. Daphne and Richard agreed that she would wait to tell the boys until they came home for Thanksgiving. It would be easier face to face. Her divorce lawyer’s father had known her father, and was said to be excellent. Everyone was extremely civilized. They were, after all, still Caldwells.

  But she wasn’t. Not anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  By fall Emily’s Cookies was an established local success. She had worried that in this city of fads it would be only another fad, but instead business got better and better. People told other people about her. She was even filling orders for some restaurants, The Couriers rushing them there every day, fresh and warm. And now the most amazing, flattering thing had happened: she was going to be interviewed for the new magazine Fashion and Entertainment West; by Christine Spark English, whom she’d known at Radcliffe.

  Chris Spark, who had always been so smart and talented, and who had finally married Alexander English, that handsome boy she’d had such a crush on all through school. Emily wondered if Chris’s marriage had turned out better than hers. The piece was on California women who had started their own small businesses. Chris had written to her, and then phoned, and was coming out for several days, staying at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Emily was sorry she didn’t have her old house so she could have invited Chris to stay with her. But of course, if she had her old house she’d still have Ken, so she wouldn’t have dared to invite Chris. They were meeting at the store, and then they were going to go to Emily’s rented apartment to talk.

  Peter was practically delirious with joy. He kept saying what a great publicity break this was, and telling Emily to be terrific. She didn’t even want to think about it, but of course she thought about nothing else. She had never in her life expected to be interviewed, and besides being flattered she was scared to death. So what else was new? She was always scared to death. But she was beginning to get over it in a lot of ways.

  Chris arrived in the morning as soon as the store opened, looking chic and very New York. They’d seen each other at their twentieth reunion six years ago, so they recognized each other immediately.

  “This piece is for our December Christmas issue,” Chris said.

  “Oh, good,” Emily said. She had prepared a little promotion package for Chris, with their Christmas tin—thin red and green lines in the butterscotch and white checks—and the matching Christmas paper bags, and the nice-looking flyers they were sending out to a large mailing list they had bought. Of course there were hot cookies for Chris to taste, and Emily had brought in coffee to go with them. She introduced Chris to Peter and Jared and the kids who were working in the “factory”; and did a guided tour, which took all of about five minutes.

  “I have to tell you I’m very honored,” Emily said. “What made you pick me anyhow?”

  Chris grinned. “My boss said, ‘There’s a cookie lady in California who went to school with you.’ When I heard it was you I thought it was a great idea. I wouldn’t have suspected you would turn out to be a successful businesswoman—the last time I saw you, you were exactly what we were brought up to be.”

  “A dishrag,” Emily said, and grinned back. “But I’m not so successful yet, just getting there.”

  “Wait till you’re in the magazine,” Chris said.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Emily said, shivering with pleasure as she remembered. “Everything happened so fast. First I thought we were going to be a total disaster, and then …” She told Chris the story of their first few days. As they talked, the store was already full of customers, as it always was now. “Why don’t we go to my apartment where we can talk in peace?”

  They went in Emily’s car so Chris wouldn’t get lost. Emily had bought flowers, and there were books and magazines all over, so the place didn’t look so temporary and unlived in, even though she was hardly ever there. They sat on the living room couch and had more coffee, and Emily talked about volume and orders and their future plans.

  “But how did you get started?” Chris said.

  “Oh, God. It was almost an accident. My husband threw me out. My son was looking for a summer job. I had always been sort of famous for my cookies … No, don’t say that about Ken throwing me out. I wasn’t poor—I had money and credit cards—it isn’t as if I was on the street, destitute or something. Actually I didn’t have to do anything.” She was sure she was screwing up the interview and felt like a fool. Then she pulled herself together and went on. “I guess I’m sort of jabbering, but I was never interviewed before.”

  “That’s all right,” Chris said. “You’re doing fine. You and Ken are separated now, I gather.”

  “Yes. We might get back together, I don’t know. But this business is my life now, and even if I do go back to Ken it won’t be in the old way. I mean, I won’t just be filling up time, and waiting for him. Maybe you shouldn’t say that either.”

  Chris laughed. “If you keep making me take out the interesting parts we won’t have any interview.”

  “Do you think this is interesting?”

  “It is to me. We weren’t educated to go into business. Or to take care of ourselves if our marriages ended. We were to be the helpmeets of powerful men and live happily ever after.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “That’s absolutely true. Education for Education’s Sake. I got it all mixed up with being a perfect person. Maybe we were supposed to. Remember that Gracious Living nonsense we were taught at Radcliffe? Some of us laughed at it, but I believed all of it. The house mother pouring the demitasse in the living room after dinner. No jeans allowed in the dining room; we had to dress. And we couldn’t wear slacks in Cambridge, even in the snow. We had to freeze to keep our ladylike image.”

  “Yes,” Chris said, nodding and smiling.

  “And remember Curfew?” Emily went on. “And the sign-out book?
Social Pro for breaking the rules, for coming in late, remember? And we couldn’t let boys even peek upstairs, ever. It was a sexy, forbidden seraglio—full of girls in curlers and pimple cream.” Now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop: it all came pouring out. Chris just kept silently nodding agreement, fixing her with bright, sympathetic eyes. “I remember when the girl on Bells would say: ‘You have a caller,’” Emily said, “and how I’d come down like a princess, all fixed up. And the phone messages from ‘Mr. X’… We couldn’t call a boy back, remember that? It was considered too pushy. The grown-ups, society, told us we were so smart and intellectual and special, but then they told us not to let anybody know it or we’d scare the men away. We were supposed to be perfect ladies, virgins, compliant hypocrites; and the future wives of Harvard men if we followed the rules.”

  “Yes,” Chris said; rather sadly, almost mysteriously, Emily thought. “The Rules.”

  “We judged people by how they followed the rules,” Emily said. “The Saturday night date … if he was a gentleman he’d call you on Monday for Saturday, Tuesday at the latest. Ken did. We both followed all the rules. Always. And we started to go steady so soon after we met, because we thought we knew each other, because we both followed the rules and that was supposed to be the way you knew what a person was.”

  “So many secrets …” Chris said, in that same odd tone.

  “And you know what?” Emily said. “Ken and I did have Gracious Living when we got married. Fresh flowers all the time, lovely food, beautiful things, I read the right books …”

  “A house in the country for weekends,” Chris said. Her voice sounded dreamy and ironic. “A fire in the fireplace … good wine …”

  “I wonder about some of those other women like me,” Emily said. “Under all that Gracious Living I bet they’re living the same kind of lonely, stunted lives that I was.”

  “I’m sure,” Chris said.

  “I certainly made a big speech, didn’t I,” Emily said with a little laugh. “This is the first time anybody ever listened to me.”

  “You give a terrific interview,” Chris said.

  “Was that my interview?” Emily asked, a little taken aback. “I thought we were just talking.”

  “That, too.”

  “But I don’t want you to print everything I said! The part about my life being awful. And how circumstances just kind of threw me into this at first. Because I’ll tell you the truth: all my life I was a wimp and a terrified doormat, and I don’t want to be that anymore. I want to be independent. I don’t want it to look like I had to do this; I want it to be that I chose to do it.”

  “But you did choose to do it,” Chris said. “That’s what you told me.”

  “It’s true.”

  “And you worked hard.”

  “I did. I still do. I’m going to keep on.”

  “I’ll give you some good advice, Emily,” Chris said. “The next time you do an interview, be careful what you say. I’m a friend, and you can trust me. But nobody reads the Miranda Act to a celebrity.”

  “Oh, a celebrity!” Emily laughed. “I’m never going to be that.”

  “You never know,” Chris said.

  “Tell me about your life now,” Emily said. “I bet it’s terrific.”

  “It’s interesting,” Chris said mildly. “I never expected to be this involved in a career either.”

  “And are you still as happy with Alexander as you used to think you would be?”

  Chris smiled. “I didn’t have the faintest idea about anything back then. I was simply obsessed.”

  “And now?”

  “Let’s just say … I’m older and more realistic.”

  Poor Chris. Emily understood. She had been unprepared for life too, as they all had been. But maybe nobody could ever prepare you for the things that happened. “Are you free for dinner?” she asked. “I thought you might be alone, and I know a lot of lovely places.”

  “Can you give me a raincheck?” Chris said. She didn’t look like somebody who was alone at all.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you ever come to New York?”

  “I’m hoping to,” Emily said.

  “Then we’ll definitely have dinner in New York. Or lunch. Whichever you prefer.”

  “You have a deal,” Emily said. “I know two people in New York now. I’m really going to have to get there.”

  Chris’s article appeared in the magazine at the end of November, and Emily’s life changed overnight. There was an order for five hundred tins from IBM. Mail and phone orders came pouring in, and cars jostled for space outside in the street all day, double parked while their owners rushed in to buy the cookies that were newly chic. The ovens were going day and night, and she had to hire extra help; luckily there also seemed to be an unending supply of college kids who wanted part-time jobs during this holiday season. A lot of them wanted to stay on for good, and it looked as if she would need them to. Peter was negotiating to get the lease on the pizza place next door, so they could break through and expand.

  “Maybe we’re being premature …” Emily said. “I mean, Christmas is cookie season.”

  “It’s always cookie season,” Peter said. “Let’s lock this deal in now, before they find out we’re rich and charge us double.”

  “We’re not rich yet,” Emily said, but she was pleased, and secretly thought they would be soon.

  She introduced a new recipe: butterscotch chip marshmallow, making sure it wasn’t too sweet and cloying, which wasn’t an easy feat, and it did well as soon as it appeared. She sent the kids out to the shopping malls again on the day she revealed her new flavor, and this time instead of having to cajole people to take free cookies they were mobbed.

  Peter was looking for a good press agent now, and had stopped even mentioning going back to school. He had given up the apartment with all those roommates and now had one of his own; his first step on the way to the beach house, the expensive sports car, the gorgeous live-in girl friend and the killer dog.

  It was at this moment that Ken invited Emily to dinner.

  She thought: Why not? He had been phoning her regularly and acting civil. If she entertained thoughts of going back to him they should at least discuss their future face to face.

  He picked her up at her apartment, looking distinguished in a suit and tie, and took her to Chasen’s. She thought he looked a lot better than when she’d last seen him; not so thin and wasted. He ordered a very expensive white wine, saying he thought she would like it, and was polite and charming. “Come home for the holidays,” he said. “We’ll go to a little off island near Hawaii for Christmas. A deserted island where we can get to know each other again.”

  “But Christmas is our busiest time,” Emily said.

  “The boys can run the business.”

  He was saying it gently and persuasively, but it hurt. Why did Ken always think she was useless? She could take a vacation if she wanted to—she was only as far as the nearest phone, and whenever things were running smoothly she was actually the figurehead, even though she was also the famous Emily. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I’ll hire a boat,” Ken said. “We can go to several islands. Would you like that?”

  She thought about it. She didn’t like boats, and she didn’t sit in the sun much anymore. Ken had accused her of being fat and flabby and old, and now he intended to look at her in merciless sunlight in a bathing suit? She preferred Chasen’s in a dress. Besides, even though Ken looked a lot more like his former sane self, the idea of being alone on a boat in the middle of nowhere with him was more frightening than romantic. “I’d rather go to one island,” she said. “You pick it.”

  “All right,” he said, looking pleased. “Christmas week. It will be like a second honeymoon.”

  They hadn’t had a dinner like this, where he actually talked to her, the way he talked to other people at dinner parties but never to her, in ages. She could see why everyone liked Ken. The wine and the roseate a
tmosphere of the restaurant relaxed her, and she began to look at him as a man again instead of the unpredictable monster she had once lived with. He was still so attractive … She had never stopped thinking that, even when she liked nothing about him at all.

  After dinner, she thought he would drive her back to her apartment, but instead he took her to their house, the home they had once shared. “I don’t think …” Emily began, but he stopped her.

  “Just for a drink,” he said.

  They sat on the couch and he poured her a glass of wine because he knew she didn’t like brandy. He had music playing on the stereo. It was just like a date, but they were married … it seemed strange. She liked it better than marriage.

  He looked at her winningly, and then he leaned over and kissed her lightly. “I missed you so much,” he said.

  “Oh, Ken, I wish that were true.”

  “It is true,” he said. He kissed her again, this time more seriously. Despite her reservations she found herself enormously flattered. “Stay,” he murmured. “Please stay.”

  “I …”

  “I’ll drive you back in the morning.”

  She stayed. She was back in her room, her bed, with her husband, and it seemed both different and familiar. They made love the way they always did, perhaps better, perhaps more lingeringly, because he was trying. And while it was happening Emily realized that she had never really liked sex very much with Ken. She had liked the idea of it, because it was supposed to mean they loved each other, but often he had stopped before she was satisfied, and often she had faked an orgasm because she didn’t want him to think it hadn’t been rewarding for her, or to offend him. They had never really discussed their sex life, and she wouldn’t have been able to tell him the truth even if they had tried.

  He had told her she was a boring lover, but so was he. At least for her. Maybe he was better with those other women, or perhaps she never had been very highly sexed. She might have been frightened right out of her sexuality by her mother’s warnings. Emily sighed, and Ken took it for a sigh of relaxation and bliss. He pulled out, and she wished she could go home.