I feel like I might choke on it.
"I was meditating," she says.
"In the deep end?" I ask, swimming to the other side of the pool. "With all of your clothes on?"
"I was sitting in the lotus position," she says, swimming to a ladder and sitting on the top rung. "Counting seconds. Being mindful. I learned it from this roommate I once had."
"At the bottom of the deep end?" I smack the surface of the water angrily. "What were you thinking? You scared the hell out of me!"
"I'm sorry," Elspa says. "You scared me, too."
I hoist myself out of the pool, my shirt and pants clinging to me. I sit on the edge, take off my soaked shoes. I don't look at Elspa. I can't. "And were you ever going to tell me the truth?"
"What truth?" Elspa asks—as if there are so many truths and untruths to choose from.
"That you had an affair with Artie while he was already married to me? That he stills pays for your life? You lied to me and just kept lying in all of those little ways— the whole waitress thing, the whole thing about never having had that kind of relationship with him, the sculpture from your imagination."
Elspa is quiet for a moment. Her beautiful pale wet face is still. "He's dying. I didn't think it was, I don't know, appropriate."
"Appropriate?" I shout, incredulously.
She wipes the water from her face, hugs herself. I can see one hand gripping the wreath tattoo on her upper arm.
"Look, I can handle it from here," I say. "Your turn at his deathbed is over. So you can go. Thanks for everything." I pause, something occurring to me. "One question: do you love elevators?"
"Elevators?" she asks.
"Never mind." That must have been yet another one of Artie's sweethearts. How many are there? And each of them comes with how many lies?
When Elspa stands and starts to walk to the patio doors, I look up at her. She's shaking. "Why did you marry him in the first place?" She stops and then turns. "Didn't you ever see the good in him?"
I stare at her. This is a completely unacceptable question to ask. I don't owe her an explanation of my love for Artie, and I'm about to tell her this, but then it's back—that fissure inside me, a breaking open. I find myself thinking of Artie and me, a very particular hilarious moment, and I start to talk in a very quiet voice. "When Artie and I were on our honeymoon, it was mating season for stingrays. We were walking out in the surf, holding hands, and this guy told us the stingrays were harmless unless we stepped on one. 'Then what?' we asked each other. 'Certain death?' We walked back toward shore. I screamed first, thinking I'd brushed one with my foot, and then Artie screamed because I'd screamed. And then I screamed because Artie screamed. And then it was just funny and we kept screaming back and forth all the way to the shore, just because."
I'm gazing into the pool. I've said it all so quietly that I'm not sure if Elspa heard me. I'm not even sure she's still there. But when I look up, I see her, across the pool, her eyes brimming. She doesn't say a word.
I keep going. "Once a punk kid from the neighborhood tried to steal Artie's old Corvette out of the garage and Artie heard him from bed and ran naked down the street after him, swinging a golf club."
Elspa laughs. I do, too, a soft flutter in my throat.
I can't stop now. "His favorite place to think and make big plans is a junky diner called Manilla's. He speaks a great butchered French. He always messes up the words to songs but still sings them loudly. He always has trouble hanging up on telemarketers. I once caught him sort of counseling a telemarketer hawking a lower mortgage rate. The kid—a woman of course—was just out of college and deep in debt and confused about whether or not she should get engaged to a pilot. Artie was on the phone for an hour—just handing over good advice." Strange how I simply rattle these off. I suppose these are my responses to Artie's numbered inscriptions from the flowers he kept sending me. I suppose I've been compiling a history of my own, without really knowing it, and here they all are, spilling out of me.
"When his dog Midas died, the upstairs bathroom sprung a leak right at that same time and he tore up the house looking for the leak, where it was coming from, how it was moving along beams and pooling somewhere else. But it was really about the dog. He loved that dog . . . And he wanted me to get pregnant. He wanted that desperately. He used to put his head on my stomach in bed and pretend he was designing my womb so that the baby would have a plush pad to live in for nine months. Things like: maybe if we move the sofa over here and get one of those fluffy white throw rugs . . ." I stop myself. I can hear Artie's voice so clearly in my head that I don't want to go on. I shout across the yard, "You fucking bastard!"
"I'm sorry," Elspa says.
I blink at her. "About what?"
"You loved him, and you still love him. I wasn't sure before."
I know that I'm about to start crying. I don't want to.
I'm afraid that if I start, I won't be able to stop. I look up at Elspa. "Why did you try to kill yourself?" I ask.
Her eyes skitter across the tree line. She glances up at the sky, and then back to me. "I was a drug addict when I met Artie."
This confession terrifies me. And in a moment when I shouldn't be selfish at all, a very selfish thought comes to mind. Artie had an affair with a drug addict?
She quickly reads my expression and assures me. "I wasn't a needle user. I wasn't whoring for drugs. I'm not . . . sick. We were safe and he only said the sweetest things about you, these beautiful stories. He raised you up and worshipped you. He still worships you."
I'm not sure how to take this. "He has a strange way of showing it. I mean, worshipping me like an idol, sacrificing virgins? That's not the way I'd like to be worshipped."
"Honestly," she tells me, "it was different—a different kind of intimacy."
"I think we have different definitions of the term honestly," I say. "I still don't understand how you lied to me so convincingly."
"I'm an addict. One thing addicts know how to do well is lie," she says, a dark regret in her voice that I haven't heard before. "I'm trying to tell you the truth now, and my relationship with Artie wasn't like that. You know?"
"No, I don't know."
She says flatly, "I was very fragile most of the time. I could barely stand to be touched. I was a mess."
"Go on," I say.
"A week before I met Artie, I gave my daughter, Rose, to my mother to raise."
"You have a daughter?"
She nods.
"And, forgive me for being a little suspicious at this point, but do you want to go over the time frame of your relationship with Artie and her birth?" I ask this question though I know that Artie is at a point in his life when he's claiming his children, not denying them.
"She isn't Artie's kid. She was one year old when I met Artie and when I gave her up. Now she's three. It almost killed me to give her up. Literally. I've been clean ever since Artie saved my life."
"Why aren't you raising her now?"
"I visit as often as I can. My parents think it's too confusing for her. Who's the mommy and all of that. But I weasel my way in as often as I can." She shakes her head roughly. "My parents made it clear that I had to give her to them. They were right. I wasn't in any shape to be a mother. They've taken on that role. And it wasn't easy for them. They're older now. And I don't know. It's not my right to ask them to give up that role now. They wouldn't, anyway. They'd never trust me with her."
"But do you want to be her mother?" I ask.
"More than anything," she says.
"Your parents took up that role valiantly, but maybe they'd give her back to you if they knew how much you've changed."
"Oh, no," she says. "They never trusted me, not even before. I was never good enough, never worth anything in their eyes. I explain to them how I'm taking college classes again, but they always think that if they give me any money, it's just going to go to drugs."
"In any case," I say, "it is your right to be her mother, isn't it? I mean legall
y speaking. Did you sign over your rights?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"Then it is your right, not only legally, but maybe ethically, too," I tell her.
"I want to go and get her. That's what I want more than anything. But I can't."
"Maybe you would be a good mother now, Elspa. Maybe you're ready."
She's quiet a moment. "You would be a good mother," she adds, her voice hushed.
And this is it. The fissure breaks open, and the now-too-familiar anger mixes equally with grief. I curl forward. The sobs are deep and guttural. Artie won't be a father to my child. Whatever chance we might have had to work things out makes no difference now. He is going to die.
I don't hear Elspa make her way around the pool, but suddenly she's here, at my side. She puts her arms around me. We're both soaking wet. She holds me tightly, a hug that feels more like she's the one hauling me up from the bottom of the pool now, and I can feel myself giving in to it.
I look up at the house, and there is Artie, with the male nurse standing at his side, watching us from an upper window in the office across from the bedroom. He looks confused and relieved. He seems to know that this is a private moment, that he's intruding. I see the two of them turn back into the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Sometimes After Abandoning Ourselves to Emotion, We Want to Tidy Up
I start to tidy up by cleaning the broken vase, putting the flowers into one of the old vases I keep under the kitchen sink, soaking up the water with paper towels. I don't read Artie's #59. I'm tired of sentiments that are so tight they can fit on a little card. I'm tired of Artie-isms.
But this tidying doesn't quite satisfy me.
I decide that I need an overhaul, complete reorganization.
I know when to call a meeting. I am, after all, a professional, the kind who's genuinely suited to it—soothed by charts, amused by indexes, even sometimes delighted by a well-tallied table.
I know that Eleanor, Elspa—even my mother—and I have things that need to change. We have, as we say in the business, overlapping goals. We've been pulled together because of Artie's impending death, and I'll be damned if I can't make this thing profitable—in the emotional sense—for all of us. Every good manager knows that a catastrophe can really be an opportunity, if you look at it the right way.
I also know how to prepare an agenda. I spend the afternoon and early evening creating profiles—needs, goals, capacity for each individual to withstand risk—and, based on these profiles, I make a plan for each person I've invited.
Am I being too assertive, overly structured, hyperorganized? Possibly, but after being lied to by one of my husband's sweethearts, threatening to smother my ailing husband in front of a witness, pulling a possibly suicidal woman from the bottom of a pool, and having a little breakdown, what would you expect? Surely some of the best organizational efforts are a reaction to the world's emotional catastrophes.
The meeting is a surprise to those attending. Eleanor and my mother, fresh from the salon and perked to edginess by lattes, are sitting at the dining room table. My mother has a newly configured hairstyle stiff with spray. Eleanor's hair is still pinned back, but two soft strands are curved by her jawline, looking rigidly windswept. She seems softer than before, prettier, younger. In fact, she may not quite be fifty yet. Bogie is perched on my mother's lap. His doggie jockstrap matches the pale yellow of my mother's outfit, shoes and all—a new low. Elspa is there, too, her piercings glinting under the dining room chandelier. They're all holding the agendas I've printed out.
"I've called this meeting," I say, "because we don't have much time and we need to be organized if we're all to meet our goals."
"Why are we having a meeting? Why so formal?" Eleanor says.
"Are you wearing work slacks?" my mother asks.
I am, in fact, wearing work slacks and a nice button-down, but not a matching blazer. "These are my comfort clothes," I say. I like them because I know who I am when I'm wearing them.
"Interesting," Eleanor says.
"How could there be any comfort in those clothes?" Elspa says.
"At least I don't match my dog," I say, gesturing to poor, oblivious Bogie. My mother looks stung. "I'm sorry," I tell her. "Let's not get off course." But I know that they're onto me already. I can tell that they know I'm overcompensating, and knowing that they know, I can feel my own swelling emotions—a deep sadness and anger and love and, because of that mixture, that swelling— panic. "The agenda is clear. I've marked down everyone's goals and needs and, brought together by Artie's impending death, how we individually and collectively can reach those goals." Impending death. I thought about how to say it while I was writing the agenda. It's the most clinical term I could come up with. I was afraid that if I said anything else, I wouldn't be able to take it. Impending is a hefty enough word that it doesn't seem real. I don't want to venture too close to the reality of Artie's death right now. I can't. I know how fragile I feel.
"Who's John Bessom?" Eleanor asks, pointing at his name on the agenda.
"He's Artie's son. He's not here, but he is one of the people who's been brought together with us by Artie. And, he doesn't know it yet, but he's going to get to know Artie before Artie dies because he shouldn't repeat his father's mistakes."
"And how is he going to get to know Artie?" Eleanor asks. "Will Artie hand over his own glorious version of himself?"
"No," I say. I've already thought of this. He can't just have Artie's glorious version. "I'm going to give him my version, too. I'm planning a tour."
"A tour?" my mother says.
"Of Artie's life. The Good and the Bad Tour."
"That's a great idea," Elspa says, but she says it so gently and with such airy wisdom in her voice that I know she means it's something I need more than Artie's son. This chafes me, but I don't feel like getting into it.
"Fathers are important," I tell them. "Even if you don't really know them that well." Mine was nearly a stranger to me when he died. "John Bessom will know his father. Otherwise he won't get his inheritance."
"His inheritance?" my mother asks.
"Yes. There's money for him in Artie's will, but it's up to me how much he gets."
"Well, dear," my mother says—she has theories about the money of dead and ex-husbands, and giving it away isn't one she thinks highly of.
"So the bastard's got a son," Eleanor says, tapping her nails on the table.
"I didn't know it either, until a few days ago," I say.
"That is so Artie," Eleanor says, fury rising to her cheeks. "So many deceptions!"
"Oh, he's just a man. What can we expect?" my mother says.
"If we don't expect anything from them, then they never learn, which explains their atrophied emotional abilities," Eleanor says.
"Which brings me to Eleanor," I say.
Everyone turns her attention to the agenda.
"'Wouldn't it be wonderful if Artie were able to make peace with his past—all of it—before he died?' That's what you said the other night. And you're right. It would do him good." At this point, there's an edge to my voice. I can hear it as clearly as anything—spite, revenge? I want Artie to learn some lessons. I want him to have to deal with his own legacy. The anger rears up again. It tightens my throat. I cough and point to the agenda. "This point of the plan is listed under Artie's needs and goals, but it would also do you good, Eleanor, wouldn't it? And so it's cross-listed under your needs and goals." It could be listed under my needs and goals, too, but I'm not ready to own up to that publicly.
"Look, I've come to terms with men," Eleanor says. "It's quite simple: I've sworn off them."
My mother gasps.
"Maybe for now you can agree to head up the charge to help Artie make peace with his past just because it's good for Artie. And, if you happen to learn something about yourself in the process, so be it," I offer.
"And how would I go about making Artie come to terms with his past?"
"I have an a
ddress book filled with all of his sweethearts. That's how I got in touch with you. I think he should have a session with as many of those women as possible to hear about just how he failed them, just how he's done them wrong."
"Well, that would be delicious, really. My pleasure."
"But what if he hasn't done them wrong?" Elspa says.
"Oh, right," I say. "You're one of the red circles."
"Red circles?" she asks.
"Each name has one of two marks: a red circle, which means that he left the woman on good, perhaps mutual terms, or a red X, which means not-so-good terms."
"And after my name?" Eleanor asks.
I give her a look like: Well, what do you think?
"A very big X," she says, with a kind of pride. "We should only invite the women Artie did wrong. Only the red X's."
"Is that fair?" Elspa asks.
"Artie has you to tell him how wonderful he is," I say. "Artie Shoreman has come to terms with all of his good points. He needs to come to terms with the other part of himself. He needs to understand betrayal." And then I put it in Elspa terms. "We learn more from our failures than from our successes."
My mother sighs and rolls her eyes. "It's a waste of time—old dog, new tricks! Men need pampering. They're the weaker sex."
Here there is a collective sigh.
"I don't know if it'll work," I say, "but it's worth a try."
Then my mother says, "I don't understand what my goal means. Be my own person? I am my own person, dear."
"You could be more of your own person," I say.
"How do you plan to have her achieve this goal?" Eleanor asks sternly.
"I don't know," I say. "If she could just work toward it—"
"Well, that's ridiculous!" my mother says.
"For example, you could stop big-game hunting for your sixth husband. Just ease up a little on that front . . ."
"I'm not big-game hunting!"
"Just think about it," I say.
"I'm with Eleanor! I think this meeting is stupid!"
"I didn't say that," Eleanor balks.
My Husband's Sweethearts Page 9
