The Husband

by Sol Stein

  No matter. It was no go.

  He dressed in silence, as quickly as he could, took the suitcase and stood a moment at the door. Susan had not moved, and now that it was over, he saw as he had before how lovely she could be. He felt pity for her in the role she pursued.

  “I’m used to it,” she said, getting off the bed and coming over to him at the door. “The funny thing is how often it works out.”

  Peter wanted to say something helpful, but all that came out was, “Wouldn’t Paul get the same kick out of watching blue movies?”

  “Would you?” said Susan.

  She kissed his cheek again, as if to grant reassurance of some kind, and Peter followed his impulse, which was to kiss her not on the cheek but on the mouth, and it was the same mouth he had kissed before and the same excitement came over him. He could feel her body through his clothes, and the insanity of it was that in a second he was locking the bathroom door and shedding his clothes again.

  He couldn’t tell whether Susan wanted to with him, and for an instant, it was only an instant, God help him, he found himself using force, and then he knew she wanted to also, and he did. It brought him great physical pleasure, and a welcome release for them both. What kind of animal was he, he thought?

  Their joy was barely subsiding when he thought of Paul in the next room.

  Where would this lead to, or was this merely one of those sexual transiencies other men talked about that had no repercussions whatsoever?

  Paul knew.

  Susan knew.

  He knew.

  It could not be erased. Play it by ear, he thought, and knew that playing things by ear was not his life-style. He found his security in planning. Now someone else’s plan had been unleashed in his life.

  As he dressed for the second time (that meeting with Bermar—that improbable meeting—was so soon!), he saw Susan watching him and wished that he could read her mind. He wanted to blow her a kiss, knew it might look foolish, and so he simply picked up his suitcase (the traveling salesman, he joked to himself) and when he closed the door of her room, he stood outside just long enough to hear her unlocking her bathroom door to let Paul back into her world.

  *

  Peter had the key in the lock of his own room when he heard the phone ringing and remembered that he had forgotten to call home. He got the door open as quickly as he could, shut it behind him, dropped the suitcase and headed for the phone. When he picked it up and said, “Hello?” he wondered if his voice betrayed him.

  “Here’s your party,” said the telephone, and then he heard a woman’s voice in New York say, “Thank you.”

  He really didn’t want to talk to anyone. He wanted time to think.

  “Peter,” said Elizabeth, clear as if she were in the room with him, “you’ve been cheating on me.”

  *

  After an interval, she said, “Are you there?” and he realized that though his brain had been clacking away, his voice had been silent. He said he was there.

  “Anything wrong?” she asked.

  “No, no,” he reassured her. Then, thinking he had best carry this lightly (why do we think mind reading is possible when we know it is not?), he said, “I can’t be cheating. Rose is in New York.”

  “Did you call her?”

  He had forgotten. He would right away.

  “You sound distracted.”

  “Well, the meeting’s very soon. I’m supposed to play industrial psychologist.”

  Elizabeth laughed.

  Then she said, “Why do you sound the way you do?”

  “How do I sound?”

  “Removed. Not yourself.”

  “Sorry. Been a bit hectic since we got here.”

  “How hectic?”

  He wished the conversation would stop. He was trying to say innocuous things and instead was getting in deeper.

  “Peter, when you’re home where Rose can hear you, you say the most indiscreet things. Now that you’re in a hotel room alone, we talk like strangers. Or aren’t you alone?”

  If he said he was alone, she’d expect intimacies on the phone. If he invented somebody’s presence, it could lead to complications. Things were complicated enough already.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, I am, but, elf, listen, I’ve got to get set for the meeting. My mind’s in a whirl.”

  He could tell that she was put out. The range and pace of his talk had been artificial. He wished the whole conversation could be recalled and tried again. He said goodbye. As he hung up, an onrush of guilt flooded him for the first time since he left Susan’s room.

  He stretched out on the bed, hoping that if his body could relax his mind would, too. The phone rang. It was Susan.

  “Meet in the lobby in ten minutes, okay?”

  He was used to Big Susan giving instructions. Now she was asking.

  “Paul be there?” he asked, feeling foolish about the question.

  “Of course,” she said.

  He was tempted to say, “The show must go on.” With temptations like that, say the least.

  “Ten minutes,” he said.

  Peter called Rose and explained as quickly as possible about the sudden trip, the industrial psychologist bit, he’d be home tomorrow.

  Rose interrupted. “Is Elizabeth there?”

  “She’s in New York,” he said, trying to sound surprised at the question.

  “I’ll let you talk to the kids,” said Rose, and in a minute he was listening to Margaret jabbering away, and then Jonathan, and when he hung up at last, he remembered almost nothing of what had been said.

  *

  He spotted Paul and Susan across the lobby. He wondered if Paul was thinking about firing him. Not now; he knew about Paul, Paul knew about him and Elizabeth. A blackmail standoff, even up. His clue would be what Paul would say.

  Paul said merely, “Let’s go,” and they did. The limousine was out front. The pilgrimage to Bermar was made in silence.

  Paul was brilliant at the meeting. The Rent-a-Car Club seemed a sounder idea than at first. Peter nodded and yessed on cue, and at the end of the meeting H. Q. Wilson seemed genuinely pleased and even made a big do over Peter’s “contribution.”

  Peter had lost his sense of time but knew it was quite late when they got back to the hotel. They didn’t stop in the bar for a nightcap. Nobody suggested it.

  He wondered if they were supposed to make another try at it now that everyone knew his role. Would Paul risk it?

  Peter wondered what else would have happened that night if the first pass had worked. A second round? Does twice make a confirmed habit?

  Big Susan had said other attempts had sometimes failed. He looked to her for a cue.

  “Good night,” she said as the elevator reached their floor. “We’ll see you in the morning.” Would Paul retaliate? There was a sadness on Paul’s face as he and Susan turned off to their rooms.

  As he lay in bed, Peter tried to imagine the conversation that might be taking place between Paul and Susan. He wondered if anything else besides conversation took place. Probably couldn’t; that was the problem, wasn’t it? Did Susan tell Paul earlier what had happened between them? Would she now, or ever?

  It must have been close to morning when Peter finally fell asleep. He dreamed one of those transportation dreams in which you can’t get a cab, the trains go in the wrong direction, you try to walk and things get in your way, and you get increasingly alarmed about never reaching your destination. The phone, not the dream, shattered him awake.

  It was Susan’s voice.

  “We’re dressed and headed out to Bermar to finish off the basic budget questions. Paul thinks maybe you’d better stay here. Things went so well at the meeting we might as well leave well enough alone.”

  It was her old way of talking.

  Since he couldn’t get back to sleep, he got dressed and ate some waffles in the coffee shop downstairs, then roamed aroun
d Chicago, feeling superfluous. When he got back to the hotel, they still weren’t there.

  He imagined that Susan and Paul had been in a terrible car accident, wiping out the incidents of last night without trace.

  Susan and Paul finally showed up, packed quickly, and the three of them were sped to the airport. The accident will happen now, Peter thought. All three of us will be wiped out, that’s the way it’s planned.

  The plane took off on time. He sat behind Susan and Paul, who talked during the trip as if they were old and very good friends staging a reunion. Peter could make out very little of what they said. All he could see was the heads bobbing from time to time. On this leg of the trip, he was the voyeur.

  Chapter Seven

  Angled on Peter’s head was his seldom-worn bowler hat, a signal to those who knew him well that he was in a manic state. He led Elizabeth by the hand (“Not by the hand!” she said, but he paid no attention) down the tree-lined street on which he lived, his legs moving faster than a walk and yet not running.

  “Peter,” she said, “you’re out of your mind.”

  “Out of breath,” he answered, “and well out of my mind. Have you ever been in my mind? It’s terrible.”

  “Not a step farther.” She had stopped abruptly, catching Peter in midstride and nearly throwing him off balance.

  “Hey,” he protested.

  “It’s insane. I won’t do it.”

  He couldn’t tell how serious she was. A moment before, she had seemed to be sharing his madcap exhilaration, but now, half a minute from home, she stood braced against his tugs, determined.

  “If you won’t move,” he said, “I’ll carry you.”

  “That would really be insane. A streetful of people would see us.”

  They both looked. There wasn’t a soul on the street.

  “But anyone could come out at any time,” she protested. “Look, something sensible. If you have to go there, go, but I’ll just disappear quietly around the corner and have a cup of coffee.”

  He had made the mistake of letting her hand go, and she was now walking off, dashing his plan and his spirit.

  “Please!” he said. It was the sound of his plea that stopped her. Elizabeth enjoyed so his manic states, and knew how quickly they could disappear.

  “It means a lot to me,” he said. “Please come.”

  “You’re looking for trouble.”

  “I don’t think of you as trouble. You came this far,” he said. “It’s just down the block.”

  “I didn’t think you’d go through with it.”

  “Are you daring me?”

  “No, heavens, no.”

  “Then come with me.”

  She gave him her hand again. Insane.

  They stopped in front of the three steps leading to the front door. Peter dropped Elizabeth’s hand, let himself in with the key, disappeared into the house for half a minute to make a quick check, and then motioned her in.

  Elizabeth went up three steps like an automaton, then stopped as if there were a curtain of air at the open door. “The children will hear us,” she said.

  “They’re asleep. I checked.”

  “What if they come down?”

  “I’ll tell them you’re my visiting-nurse service. To hell with that,” he said suddenly and with the strength of his arms alone lifted her up over the threshold. “I feel great tonight,” he said as he set her down and closed the door.

  “What if Rose comes back?”

  “When she goes to gab with Amanda, she always stays all evening.”

  Once or twice Peter had heard about this form of insanity from other men, taking a woman to your own house, to the stronghold itself, the ultimate boyish dare. But—he had rationalized the danger away—there were things he wanted to show Elizabeth, and what other way was there?

  “This the kids call the daddy chair,” he said, sprawling in it.

  “It looks decrepit and comfortable,” said Elizabeth, her voice still forming a high thin edge to her nervousness.

  “My father’s,” said Peter, glorying in the depths of the chair. “Never reupholstered, made before I was born.”

  “Is this the mommy chair?” asked Elizabeth, her hand on a greenish, thin chair Peter had always thought of as an inanimate lady-in-waiting.

  “Rose doesn’t have a particular chair.”

  “She sits in your lap.”

  “Now don’t you start.”

  A quick glance at each other told them both this couldn’t be happening.

  Elizabeth, to her relief, recognized a painting on the far wall and let loose an appreciative sound. “How do you ever afford a Buffet?”

  Peter perked proudly. “Bought it years ago. Instead of eating. That’s not true. Instead of drinking. It cost ninety bucks. Ninety could have bought two cases of Scotch in those days.”

  “It’s probably worth several carloads of Scotch now.”

  “I adore it,” said proud Peter proudly.

  “It, or the fact that you bought it cheap?”

  He smiled. “It’s very difficult to lie to you.” Leading her away, he said, “This one, elf, I got for nothing.”

  “I wondered where you hung it. It’s not my best. Doesn’t Rose mind?”

  “I don’t think she knows who did it,” said Peter, sorry he lied, sorrier that Elizabeth knew it.

  “She can read, can’t she?”

  “Hey, never mind,” said Peter, “come look at this. Meet the hobby I had before I had you. It’s stereophonic, multiplex, ambidextrous, hydraulic, and psychotic. It’s got a woofer, a tweeter, and a first-class rug beater. The automatic changer changes seven-inch, ten-inch, twelve-inch, and diapers. Put it together with my own hands.”

  Like a boy about the set, she thought. Was he like a boy about her?

  “Nice hands,” she said. Response to a litany.

  Peter tried to put his arms around her.

  “Not here,” she whispered.

  “Want a drink?” he whispered back.

  “No, no, not here.”

  “Want two drinks?”

  “Peter, you’re insane.”

  “I’ve got some marijuana in the closet.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Would skeletons do?”

  “Peter, I’ve got the creeps. Let’s get out of here. This was a crazy idea to start with.”

  “Will you spend the weekend with me?”

  “Here?”

  “Course not. In a motel.”

  “With Rose’s permission?”

  “Okay, then, in a revolving door. Separate compartments. Who can criticize that?”

  “Please let’s leave.”

  “I wanted you to see me in my natural habitat, elf, framed by my worldly possessions.”

  “It feels like a cage to me.”

  “I go in and out at will,” he said, a shadow edging across his voice. He was sliding off the manic wave, a surfer hitting the beach. “This, m’lady,” he said, “is my warehouse. Devoid of emotional content. Except that my children sleep here.”

  “Peter,” she said, “this is the place where you sleep.”

  He was trying to think of something clever to say to her when they both heard the car in the driveway.

  Peter’s face went gray. “That’s our car.”

  “You said—”

  “Get upstairs.”

  “What?”

  “Quick. Up the stairs and turn to the right. The bedroom.”

  “Hide in your bedroom?”

  “The kids are in the other bedrooms. Now hurry. I’ll think of something.”

  “I won’t hide!” she said, green determination in her eyes.

  Peter, his heart thundering, heard the front door open. He expected anger on Rose’s face. Instead, it had the lines and pulse of surprise and fear.

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  He cautioned himself. Play it safe. Say the least. But he found the words running. “I thought you were—I mean, you said you
’d be—weren’t you supposed to be at Amanda’s for the evening? How is she?”

  “I was.”

  “She has those…again?”

  “It wasn’t cramps.”

  “Rose, you’re shaking.”

  “Here are the car keys. Jack’s there now with a bunch of the family. Go over and keep him company.”

  Lightly, lightly. “I really don’t feel like Jack tonight, really. I’d rather not.”

  “Please. He needs you.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Could you get me a glass of water?”

  “Sure, but why don’t you—?”

  “Never mind the water.” Rose folded herself into a chair, her bony knees raised high, her shoulders hunched, making her chest seem convex.

  “My mouth is dry,” she said. Peter went through the swinging door to the kitchen to fetch the water, wanted or unwanted, to give himself time to think, but the image of Elizabeth and Rose unspeaking in the same room stayed in his mind until he came back quickly and gave hunched Rose the glass. He noticed the black smudge of mascara, wet, at the right eye. Outside, he heard the horn of a passing car. He didn’t realize Rose was talking to him, ignoring Elizabeth, until Rose had said a sentence or two.

  “And when Amanda phoned, I said I’d finish watering the garden. That was when I phoned you at the office so you’d know where I was. I finished watering the garden. The hose needs picking up, I forgot to put it away. I changed my clothes. It was an hour between watering the garden and calling and changing and driving over, and I rang. I thought she might have gone out to the corner for something, you know? I tried the door and went in and there, right on the other side of the door, going into the kitchen, a chair was knocked over and a glass dribbling all over, and Peter, she was against the counter, her mouth open. I wanted to scream, she looked so awful. I mean, her teeth looked so false and one breast was hanging out, I mean, completely out of her housecoat like a limp bag. I found the doctor’s number pasted near the phone and I called, and he said not to worry, he’d come right away, and he came. Peter, Amanda is dead.”

  Rose hadn’t touched the water in her glass. Suddenly she was looking at it with revulsion, as if it reminded her of the spilled water in Amanda’s kitchen. She set the full glass down on the carpet next to her chair.