No one said anything for a moment. And then Alexandra opened her mouth. “If I were you,” she said, “and thank God I’m not, I’d keep those particular ideas concerning the male population from the people at the adoption agency. They’re not going to be real enthusiastic about giving a child to someone who considers almost half of the human race disposable.”
Oh, no, I thought. Alexandra’s gone and done it now.
Michaela seemed to morph from a human female into some magnificent beast. Honestly, it was like watching a cobra raising its jeweled head. I half expected to see a forked tongue come flickering from Michaela’s mouth and venom spew from her jaws.
“I doubt,” she said acidly, “that you even remember what a man looks like, you dried-up old bag.”
Kristen hunched as if afraid of blows. Tracy shot me a look that begged, Do something! But I had no idea what to do. Except to wait for Alexandra’s response.
“At least,” she said finally, every word delivered with careful deliberation, “I don’t have to pay for someone’s love. How is the adoption process going, anyway?”
Suddenly, I felt nauseous. Angry confrontations always make me physically ill.
Michaela’s face was flushed with what I assumed was rage. She grabbed her purse from beside her drink and stood. She glared down at me, and I could see her struggling to control a fit of trembling. “You might try to muzzle your friend when you let her out of her cage,” she spat. And then she was gone.
No one spoke for a long moment. Finally, Kristen erupted. “That was horrid, Alexandra!”
“I know. I’m sorry I said it. Really. I just—Aargh! She makes me so mad! And how does she know anything about my personal life? It so happens I had a date just two nights ago.”
“That’s not the point.” I said. “Okay, Michaela was way out of line, but that was no reason for you to retaliate the way you did. She’s very vulnerable about the adoption.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t defend myself?” Alexandra demanded. “That I should just turn the other cheek?”
“You should always try to take the high road,” Kristen murmured.
Tracy folded her arms across her chest. Was she afraid she’d poke Alexandra? “Defending yourself isn’t the same as offending against your enemy. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”
Alexandra sighed heavily. “Look, I promise to apologize the next time I see her. Which may be never because I can’t subject myself to another girls’ night out if she’s included.”
Not a problem, I thought. Because I’m going to make very sure you and Michaela are never invited to the same event.
“Can we salvage what’s left of the evening?” Tracy asked briskly. “Or should we all just go home?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Well,” Kristen said, finally, “Brian’s not expecting me until eleven.”
We all looked to Alexandra.
“I’ll stay for another drink,” she said, a bit sheepishly. “If you’ll let me.”
“Of course we’ll let you,” I replied. “But you’re buying the next round. Pretend we sued for pain and suffering and won.”
Alexandra smiled. “Deal.”
43
Ashes
“I don’t know why you just don’t join Netflix.” Alexandra handed me the DVD of Robert Altman’s Gosford Park. “Keep it as long as you want.”
“Thanks,” I said, and put it on top of the TV, VCR, and DVD player setup. “And I don’t join Netflix because I don’t watch that many movies. It doesn’t make economic sense for me.”
Alexandra had stopped by my apartment on her way home from a meeting at a client’s home in Brookline. It was a few days after the debacle at Tiger; neither of us had mentioned it since, although I’d been thinking about it all right.
Alexandra rolled her eyes dramatically. “Whatever, Miss SkinFlint.”
“I’m not cheap,” I protested. “I’m just cautious about spending my hard-earned money. Most of the time.”
“Well, you’re certainly not opposed to splitting a bill even if you’ve only had an appetizer and I’ve had a steak, so I guess I should keep my mouth shut.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate it. Can you stay for a drink?”
Alexandra checked her watch and shrugged. “Sure. Just one, though. I’ve got Prizzi’s Honor at home and I’m dying to watch it. I’ve never seen it, can you imagine?”
I fixed a vodka martini for Alexandra and a seltzer with lime for me and put out a bowl of cashews. Alexandra, I often thought, would be addicted to cashews if you could be addicted to a nut.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said as I sat on the couch.
“Shoot. Mmm. You do make a mean martini.”
“Thanks. Anyway, why do you find Michaela’s attitude toward men so personally offensive? I’ve heard you say mean things about men. About men and sex.”
“Not mean things, Anna,” she corrected. “True things. But to answer your question about why I find Michaela’s opinions so offensive, it’s because I like men. Not every individual man of course, but I like men the same as I like women. I can’t write off almost half of the human race just because they pee standing up. That’s sexism.”
Yes, it was sexism, but I wasn’t buying Alexandra’s easy answer. Something else had to account for her genuine regard for men. She certainly hadn’t gotten that from her father. And she had no brother. I wondered. There must have been a significant man somewhere along the line, someone special.
“So, who is he?” I asked. “Or who was he?”
“Who?”
“The man,” I said. “There had to be someone special in your life, someone who, I don’t know, made you forgiving of men the way you’re forgiving of women.” A kindly uncle, I thought. Or a dynamic college professor, someone who made men real, the way I suppose my brother had made men real for me.
“There was no man,” she snapped. But Alexandra often snapped; it didn’t scare me off at all.
“Oh, come on,” I said, teasingly. “What are you hiding? Tell me about the mysterious man lurking in the shadows of your life.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said promptly. “There’s something I choose not to reveal. Anyway, why should I talk about something that’s been over for years?”
It was a challenge. I took it. I’m not sure why. “Because it’s not really over?”
Alexandra’s normally pale face grew red. She more than blushed; she flushed so dark I was almost afraid. What had I done? Why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut? Why had I demanded she talk about something she didn’t want to talk about? It wasn’t like me to provoke.
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching across the couch for her arm. “You don’t have to talk about whatever it is. I shouldn’t have ...”
But Alexandra moved away from my grasp and took a deep breath. I watched as her usual calm and paleness returned.
“Okay, Anna,” she said finally. “You asked for it. You want the truth, you’ll get the truth. Just know that from this point on you’re going to look at me differently. You’re going to see some sad, romantic fool, living among the ashes of her one great love. You’ll lose all respect for me and then you’ll start to pity me and before long, our friendship will be over. Dead.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. What, I wondered, was happening in my living room? “Why would our friendship be over?”
“Because you won’t want to spend time with a swooning, pitiful idiot, and I’ll know you never understood what happened to me in the first place and I’ll be too angry and embarrassed to want to spend time with you.”
“For God’s sake, Alexandra,” I cried. “Just tell me what happened!” And then I took a deep breath. “Look, you know what, maybe you shouldn’t tell me anything after all, okay? I’m sorry I pried. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject. Really.”
“It’s too late for retreat,” she said steadily. “Here it is, Anna. I’m in l
ove with someone I can’t have. Okay? I’m in love with someone I haven’t seen in years. How’s that? Wait, it gets better. I’m in love with someone I’m pretty sure loathes and despises me. I’m in love with someone I never wanted to hurt but who I wound up hurting very badly in the end.”
“Oh,” I said.
Alexandra took a long sip of her drink before going on. “And none of it will go away,” she said. Her voice was tired now, resigned. “The memories bombard me every day. The dreams haunt me every night. You know, Anna, if I close my eyes I can still see every inch of his skin, just like he’s right here in front of me. I can smell his sweat, just like that. I can hear his voice. He’s very real to me, Anna. He’s a living memory.”
I sat back heavily. I felt slightly sick. “I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “What happened? Why aren’t you together?”
Alexandra laughed bitterly. “He was married, Anna. He’s still married.”
The notion of my self-respecting friend breaking one of the cardinal rules of self-respecting behavior stunned me. It must have been all over my face.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Alexandra said. “You’re thinking I don’t seem like the type to get involved with a married guy. I’m too strong and too smart.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I guess I was.”
“Love doesn’t have a lot to do with intelligence.”
Didn’t it? I realized that I might not know.
“But didn’t it bother you?” I asked. “Didn’t it drive you crazy that he was going home to another woman every night? I know I could never handle that.”
“When you’re in love,” Alexandra said, as if she were declaiming from a mountaintop, “you can handle almost anything as long as you can spend some time with your loved one.”
Did love make you a superwoman? Maybe that was something else I didn’t know a lot about.
“How did it start?” I asked. Visions of a smarmy, oily haired cretin leapt to mind.
“Did he come on to me in a bar?” she said, once again proving an uncanny ability to know what I was thinking but afraid to say. “Did he deliver some disgusting pickup line better associated with the Rat Pack?”
Did he, I wondered, tell you his wife didn’t understand him?
“Well, yes,” I said. “I mean, no. Just tell me how you met.” This is all very confusing, I thought. I’m just not cut out for drama and intrigue.
“We met about ten years ago when we were both doing some volunteer work at the MFA. I knew he was married. He wore a ring, he made mention of his wife in conversation like any normal person. You know, ‘My wife and I saw a great movie Saturday night,’ that sort of thing. I liked him immediately, but I had no thoughts of falling in love. Who in her right mind would choose to pursue a situation bound to end in disaster?”
No one in her right mind, I thought. But someone desperate for love?
“I don’t know,” I said stupidly. “No one, I guess.”
“Before long,” she went on, “we found ourselves becoming friends. I knew it was a bit odd, becoming real friends with someone who supposedly didn’t need any new friends because he had a wife, right? That’s what people assume about the married, don’t they? That they don’t need any more friends of the opposite sex, but that’s just stupid.”
Was it? What assumptions did I have about marriage and its participants? Who was I going to be once I married Ross? Who would other people assume I was?
“How did things change?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Naturally. Things changed naturally and imperceptibly. Honestly, Anna, at first I thought I could handle just being friends. So did he. But then, we just kept growing closer and closer, and then it was too late to walk away from each other. We had to be together. That’s as clearly as I can say it. It was inevitable, and it was wonderful. I’d met my soul mate, Anna. And he’d met his.” Alexandra laughed bitterly. “Can you believe the rotten luck?”
I wondered, How could she have been so sure of his feelings? How could she have trusted anything he said?
“Rotten luck,” I repeated stupidly.
Alexandra finished her drink and carefully set the empty glass on the coffee table. “We were happy together,” she said, “but the entire situation was bad. It tore him apart to be cheating on his wife. And frankly, I felt pretty horrible being the ‘other woman.’ Finally, the guilt just ate us up. He couldn’t leave his wife and the kids, and I couldn’t bear being with him but not really with him any longer so ... I ended it.”
“I see,” I said. But I didn’t see, not at all.
“And I got married.”
“You what?” I cried. I jumped to my feet, sloshing seltzer onto the hardwood floor. “I can’t believe you never told me any of this! You’re not still married are you? Are you keeping your husband a secret? He’s not locked away in an attic in some creepy abandoned building in South Boston, is he?”
“Of course not,” she said, testily. “It didn’t work out. We got divorced. I wasn’t in the marriage for the right reasons.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved. “Okay. I mean, I’m sorry.”
Alexandra was silent for several minutes. She stared down at her hands, lying lightly on her knees. “So now,” she said finally, “here I am. I married a man I didn’t love and I’m in love with a man who’s married to another woman.”
“But you date,” I said inanely.
Alexandra looked up at me. “I don’t really enjoy dating, you know. But it does get me out to some good restaurants. And it keeps people from making assumptions about my sexual preference.”
I opened my mouth to make some sound of protest. Alexandra cut me off.
“And don’t,” she said, “try to tell me that someday I’ll get over him and fall in love again and get married and live happily ever after, because your telling me that would mean you have absolutely no understanding of who I am. Of who I really am. Okay?”
I thought, I’m not sure I do understand who you are. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll respect you for being who you are. I’ll respect your love for this person.”
“Who will remain nameless. So don’t bother to ask. You wouldn’t know him anyway.” Alexandra sighed.
Was she relieved to have told me her secret? Or disappointed that she’d broken her vow of silence? I studied my friend without seeming to. Her black hair in a chignon. The signature lipstick. So familiar yet so foreign. Suddenly, Alexandra seemed a stranger to me. I didn’t want her to remain a stranger.
“Alexandra?” I hesitated before going on. I wondered if I had the right to ask. And then I said, “What if, I mean, do you ever wonder what you would do if he suddenly showed up on your doorstep? If he said he was divorced and wanted you to be together again?”
Alexandra stood and gathered her bag and portfolio. “It will never happen,” she said suddenly. “And if it did happen I know exactly what I would do. I would go with him. Now, promise me you’ll never mention this whole thing again. I can’t stand talking about it. I don’t want it coloring my friendship with you any more than it already has.”
I walked Alexandra to the door.
“Okay,” I said. “But if you ever want—”
“I won’t.” Alexandra slipped on a pair of big black sunglasses. “But thanks. And listen. If you ever feel for someone one-tenth of what I feel for this man, don’t let him get away, Anna. Don’t. Oh. Enjoy the movie.”
Before I could reply, Alexandra was gone.
44
Process
Later that night I woke in a cold sweat. I dashed out of bed and grabbed another blanket from the linen closet. Huddled back in bed under several layers, I took a few deep breaths.
The dreams had come back just after my engagement to Ross. I’d told myself then they were brought on by stress; the thought of planning a wedding in less than a year must have gotten to me. Since then the dreams had lessened in frequency if not intensity. Most nights I was able to sl
eep uninterrupted until morning.
And then the dreams had come again only hours after Alexandra left, as horrid as always, all about choking, and blindness, and fear. Briefly I wondered if I should talk to someone about them. But wouldn’t talking about them only make things worse? Wouldn’t it give the dreams even more of a reality than they already had?
I couldn’t know for sure if the dreams had been brought on by Alexandra’s story. But it had disturbed me. Lying there in the dark, I tried to figure out why. I didn’t condemn my friend for being involved with a married man. I didn’t judge her; I didn’t find her morally decrepit.
Still, I was a bit disappointed in her. Why? Because she had kept such an important part of her life from me? Or maybe because Alexandra wasn’t the perfect person I’d made her out to be.
I asked myself, And whose fault was that? Not mine! It was Alexandra’s fault for withholding a truth that would have helped illuminate her whole self.
I took a deep, slow breath. Really, my blood pressure was going to become an issue if people like Mrs. Kent and Alexandra and Jack kept smashing my expectations. What was happening to me? Why was I so affected by the words and actions of people who—of people who meant something to me? Where were my barriers?
And then I considered, more calmly. Maybe, I thought, I am partly responsible for the disappointment I feel. Maybe all along I’d just seen what I wanted to see. Why had I assumed that Alexandra’s persona was all there was?
The truth was I felt torn between pity and admiration. To sustain such loyalty to a memory was impressive but it was also a bit creepy. My best friend was a bona fide, old-fashioned romantic heroine. Underneath her stoic veneer beat a passionately committed heart. What would the Brontë sisters have made of Alexandra’s predicament?
And then I thought about the ring, the simple silver band that read “vous et nul autre.” Of course it must have been from Alexandra’s Mystery Lover.
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