"It's nice to meet you," the blonde says, trying to make up for the awkwardness. "I'm just so sorry. I mean under these circumstances." Her eyes well up, and I'm worried about her. Is she going to give Artie hell or is she going to go in there and mourn?
"Under these circumstances?" the brunette says. "Artie's lucky to have made it this far. Lucky he didn't get shot in bed with someone else's wife." She glances at me. "No offense," she says, but I'm not sure whether she's saying this because I'm Artie's wife or just because I'm a wife in general. "When did you and Artie get married?" she asks.
"When did you and Artie date?" I counter.
"A decade ago," she says. "But he still pisses me off."
"Artie can have that effect," the blonde says, and then adds, "I mean I'm sure he's a great husband. He was just a lousy boyfriend. I mean, if you're not his favorite."
"What's your name?" I ask the blonde.
"Spring Melanowski," she says.
"Spring?" I repeat. As in Springbird? I want to ask.
"I was born in April," she says. And then her eyes go teary again. "I just don't want to be surprised if he looks very, well, different," she says. "If he's too sickly. I mean, does he look, you know, like he's . . ." This display of emotions makes me think that Artie is a fresh wound. How fresh?
"Artie's a showman," I say. "I'm sure he'll perk up for you." And then because there's a slack moment in the conversation, I add, "You know Artie!"
This is a grave mistake.
The blonde nods her head nervously. And the brunette smiles at me in a way that means I sure do. And suddenly my chest is swarming with jealousy and more than a little embarrassment. These two women do know Artie. They know him each in their own private, intimate ways. They know him in ways I never could. All these women I now know who have pieces of Artie . . . And this Spring Melanowski's piece could have led to the destruction of my marriage. Once upon a time, I'd at least had the illusion that he was mine, wholly, but now I can't pretend.
The blonde is crying again, and this irritates the leggy brunette and, more important, me. "Look, honey, I know why I'm here," she says, and then asks the blonde, accusatorially, "Do you?"
It's a tense moment, and I wonder if the blonde is going to fall apart. Why is she here? All of these women have X's by their names. They all ended on bad terms with Artie. The blonde takes a tissue from her pocketbook. She blows her nose and flips her bangs from her eyes. The brunette and I are both waiting for her answer. Will she answer? The blonde glances at me and then at the brunette. Her voice becomes steely. "I sure as hell do know why I'm here," she says.
I didn't realize it until this moment, but I've been hunched toward the two seated women, and now I kind of rear back. I'm unsteady and, overcompensating for tipping backward, I take a step forward, banging my shin into the coffee table, where I've placed the tray. There's a clatter of spoons. I bend over, steadying myself on the table. "Fucking shit," I say.
In this moment, I realize what I've done. I've gathered the wolves. I'm sending them in to seize Artie, one by one. Does he deserve this? I look at Spring(bird?). Yes. He does. Both of these woman are self-possessed in their own ways. Artie wronged them. They deserved better. I deserved better. I wonder if I'm just sending in these women to do my own dirty work. And why don't I want to face Artie? Am I afraid I'd lose heart, cave in? But what will this fear cost me? It's possible this parade of sweethearts is as much for my sake as it is for his. Maybe I set this up, on some level, in hopes that the hurt of seeing all these women will make it easier to let him go.
"Are you okay?" the blonde asks.
"That's going to be a bruise," the brunette says.
"I'm fine," I say. "Thank you for coming. Help yourselves to some coffee."
I'm not sure how to exit gracefully. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next. But I don't have to ponder too long. I'm saved by a knock at the door. I've got a jump on Eleanor. I excuse myself, rushing to the door, but stop just shy of putting my hand on the knob. I feel nauseated because I don't want to meet another sweetheart, another woman hauling in her People magazine and her own secret version of Artie into my living room.
But I have to answer the door. I'm standing here. What else can I do?
I open it, staring at first at the stoop, willing myself to look up.
Then I hear a man's voice. "I made it," the voice says. And there stands John Bessom. He's running a hand through his blond hair, patting it down on top, and then he tucks in the back of his shirt, and suddenly he does seem incredibly young, boyishly nervous.
"You made it," I say, filled with relief.
He glances around. "I know," he says, leaning forward. "I just mentioned that."
I'm disoriented. His shirt is so blue. The day is cool, the yard so green. There's a whole world out here.
"Are you going to invite me in?" he asks.
"No," I say.
And he's taken aback for a moment.
"Artie's schedule is filled." I look back over my shoulder. "Thanks again," I say to the brunette, "for coming." And then to the blond Ms. Melanowski, I say, "See you later, Springbird."
Her head snaps toward me with the shocked expression of recognition—an unmistakable gesture of: How did you know that?
I turn to John. "Let's get out of here."
Chapter Nineteen
Where Should a Tour Begin? In the Heart
John is driving. He has the window down. The car is gusty with warm air. I told him to head into downtown Philly, so we're zipping along Route 30. Almost everything I have to say about Artie can be found downtown—his childhood on the Southside, the hotel where he first worked as a bellhop, U Penn, where he likes to say he went to school (he confessed to me early on that he really only took a few night classes there—one in art history, another in public speaking), and the places where we met and had our first date. I'm enjoying the ride, sitting back with my head on the headrest.
"I should start talking, shouldn't I?" I say. "I mean, I'm a tour guide. I should be saying, On your left, you'll see . . . and on your right, keep an eye out for . . . Well, there are a lot of things I don't know about Artie—that's what I realize now." I think about the leggy brunette's smirk, the blonde's nervous nodding.
"Stick to what you know, then."
"Okay. We met at a wake, actually, in an Irish bar called, cleverly enough, The Irish Pub."
"Really?" John says. "That's a little morbid."
"A man named O'Connor had died. Artie had known him from when he was a kid, and I knew his daughter from work. The wake was beautiful. People were laughing and crying and drinking and giving grand speeches. Artie told a story, a great story about the man losing his daughter's bunny somehow and how he and Artie spent one drunken afternoon and evening trying to catch it. Artie was so full of zing. Turn here.
"I was the one who approached him. I was loaded. I gave him my card. I told him that I wanted to book him for my wake. I said, 'You give a great eulogy.' He said he was expensive, but he'd be willing to give me a deal. Turn here. It should be right around the corner."
John pulls up across the street from the bar. It's typical, humble. It doesn't have a plaque out front that reads Lucy and Artie First Met Here.
"Do you want to go in?" John asks.
"It's an Irish bar. No. You get the picture."
"I've always thought that eulogies come too late," John says. "People should get eulogies while they're still alive. It should be mandatory."
I think about this a minute. "No casket. No lilies . . ."
"No embalming fluid," he adds.
"No funeral director with an assembly-line delivery."
"That can all come after. But everyone should hear the eulogies. Just the good stuff."
"You're right, I guess."
"Did they catch it?" John asks.
"Catch what?"
"The bunny."
"Oh, the bunny. Yes, they caught the bunny, and they were both so relieved and drunk that they cried. B
oth of them together, two grown men and this little white bunny, they just cried."
"I like that story." John pulls up to a red light. He looks in both directions. "Where to?"
Where to?
My first date with Artie: the heart.
*
The Walk-through Heart is exactly the way I remember it— two stories tall, enormous, red and purple plastic, etched with major arteries and veins—except bigger, fatter. Has it swelled up? We stand in line with kids and their parents. The kids are shouting, muffled inside the heart, but loud and bleating once out of it. They pull on their parents' hands, usually circling back to the line to start over.
"Artie had been to the Franklin Institute on a field trip when he was a kid, but the heart was shut down—undergoing surgery, their teacher said."
"Has the heart been here that long?"
"Since the fifties. It was supposed to be a temporary exhibit and was first made of, like, papier-mâché. But it was so popular that they kept remodeling it. That's when Artie's class came through, during some remodeling. They could see it, but couldn't go inside. That's why he brought me here on our first date." I remember he told me the story right here, waiting in this line. The kids were loud, but he stood right behind me, whispering into my ear. "Artie knew his parents wouldn't bring him back when it was opened. He knew this would be his only shot, so he let his class go on without him, lingered, tying his shoe, and then darted into the roped-off area."
"Did he go inside the heart?"
"No. I asked that, too. He was too scared. I think he just wanted to touch it, to see if it was beating. He placed his hands on it, and then pressed his ear up to it, like a doctor. But it wasn't a real heart."
It's our turn to step inside. We walk up the narrow stairs that form the main artery leading to the heart. We hear sound effects. It's beating, pounding blood. The twisting corridors are dark. Artie kissed me in here—our first kiss. I don't tell John this detail. I think of Artie touching my cheek, turning my face toward him. The pause. The kiss. But even this memory is filled with doubt now. Did he really break away from his childhood field trip to see if the heart was real? And if it did happen, how many women did Artie seduce in this heart, maybe even in the same chamber? Has my little Springbird Melanowski been here? I realize this is precisely the kind of thing I have to tell John. He doesn't know the truth about Artie, and I'm here to present it. But I can't really. Not here. Not now.
A herd of particularly rowdy kids all wearing the same blue school shirts are pushing their way around me in the right ventricle. The space is too small, too confined, for all these people. I'm ready to go. Why linger? I look back, but John isn't there. I push forward then, following the flow through the chambers and then, finally, out.
I look around again, but John's nowhere to be seen. I'm a little worried. I wonder if I've lost Artie's son. I remind myself he's a grown man—not a five-year-old.
I get back in the line, which moves swiftly this time. And when I get inside I say his name, quietly at first, but then a little louder. Again, I find myself at the spot where Artie first kissed me—the place I always thought of as our first kiss. How many women have I shared this with? How is it that once someone is dishonest, everything about him is shadowed in doubt? Is the heart beating louder? Or is that my own heart, pounding in my ears?
"John!" I shout. "John Bessom!" I wish I knew his middle name. If I did, I'd use the whole damn thing.
I steady myself with one hand on the plastic interior and make my way against the flow of traffic, exiting one chamber and entering another. I'm a little breathless, standing there, searching the crowd, and then I find him and I'm flooded with relief or joy. It surprises me how strong it is. It's as if I thought for a moment that he was really lost, that we'd never see each other again.
He's down on one knee inside the heart next to a kid who's crying, his face glossed in snot. It's a little boy in a white shirt, dotted with mustard. "She'll come back," John's saying. "She said to just stay put if you got lost. So let's just stay put. This is a very big heart. It must have belonged to a very big person. Don't you think?" He looks so sure of himself with this messy lost kid, and there's something about a person who can relate to kids, isn't there? Something about a person who can see a kid as a human being, who can, almost immediately, remember what it was like to live in that world. His voice doesn't have any of that fake singsong sweetness. He's just talking, and tending to the boy, distracting him so he calms down. The boy is staring up at the heart. He's stopped crying for a moment. And I realize this is what I want for myself—to be found, to be tended to. Maybe it's what we all want. Is there much more we can ask for?
"John Bessom," I say, as if I'm saying his name for the first time.
He looks up. "We got lost," he says. "But, see," he says to the kid, "I got found by my person. You'll get found by yours."
And then the kid shouts, "Mommy!" and, for a moment, I think he's throwing himself at me. I even brace myself, but then he shoots past. A woman with her hair pulled back in a mussed ponytail catches him. He hugs her thighs. "Okay," she's saying, "it's okay now. It's okay."
John looks up at me. I can tell by his expression that my face has come apart in some way. He's a little worried, but then he smiles and reaches out his hand. "You want to hold my hand this time so I don't get lost again?"
I want to say, Yes, yes, that's all I want right now. That's all. I take his hand, and he leads me out of the heart.
*
John drops me at home, and I walk into an impromptu debriefing. Elspa, Eleanor, and my mother are all there, eating baked pita and brie, drinking wine from some glasses that Artie and I got for our wedding. Bogie has been left at home, I'm guessing.
"Three were divorcées, two widows, one single," Eleanor says, consulting more charts. "There was a very emotional attorney, a soft-spoken ex-stripper who's learning sign language, a top-heavy Russian teacher . . ."
"Does Artie speak Russian?" Elspa asks me, always looking for Artie's upside. "I didn't know that!"
I manage, "Um, I once heard him say the word cigarietta, which he claimed was Russian . . ."
"The Russian was a smoker," my mother says disapprovingly, and not without a hint of fear that—if I could pinpoint it—would lead me to believe she regrets having let a Communist into my house. "She spent most of the time on the front stoop, stubbing out cigarettes in a planter."
"Was he wearing that smoking jacket through all of this?" I ask.
"Smoking jacket?" Eleanor says. "No. Just his pajamas."
"Does Artie have a smoking jacket?" my mother asks, a little impressed.
"What's a smoking jacket?" Elspa says.
"It's a jacket you smoke in," my mother tries to explain.
"Well, I liked the stripper," Elspa says. "She's doing a residency in a deaf school to see if she likes it."
"And the crier. I liked her very much," my mother says. "She stayed for some tea."
"Spring Melanowski?" I ask.
"Melanowski?" Eleanor says, checking the notes on her clipboard. "Strange woman. She left before it was her turn. She mumbled something about missing another appointment."
"Really?" I say. "Good." I want to know about Artie's women and I don't. I feel like I did as a child watching a horror flick, covering my eyes, but looking through the slats of my fingers. Don't I want to know which ones he dumped, which ones dumped him? Don't I want to know details—the why and the how and the what went wrong? No. Not really. I thought I'd have more stomach for it, but I don't. All the women make me feel a little queasy. I want them to be less attractive than I am, more fragile and bitter, so I can afford the luxury of disdain, but I know, too, that this is a club that I belong to—Artie's women— so I don't want them to be too unattractive, fragile, and bitter.
"I think we shouldn't get too involved with the individuals. It's a cumulative effect we're after here," Eleanor says. "Let's keep our eyes on the prize. The long haul. What's really important . . ."<
br />
"Wait," I say. "Just wait a second. What about Artie? What about our prize? Does he seem repentant?"
"He's sleeping," Elspa says.
"Does he look like . . . Did he mention . . ." I'm not sure what kind of question I'm trying to ask.
"Look," Eleanor says. "This is day one. These women— even the ones who leave cigarettes in the planters, maybe especially them—they will all have an effect. I have faith in jilted women, in general."
My mother is concerned about me. Her face has bunched up, and it's one of those strange moments when you see yourself in your mother's face. It just passes through quickly, a ghost of yourself within someone else. "Lucy, tell us, how was your day with Artie's son?"
"I've scheduled him to meet with Artie tomorrow morning for half an hour," Eleanor reports, perfunctorally.
"That will make Artie happy," Elspa says, making up for the detachment in Eleanor's voice.
"Elspa has done some work on her parents," Eleanor reports to me.
"It's not easy," Elspa says.
"Tomorrow, you and Lucy will go over it," my mother says to Elspa, having forgotten her question about John Bessom. "She'll get it all just right."
"The appointments begin with Artie's son in the a.m. and then there's a woman driving in from Bethesda . . ." Eleanor forges on.
The conversation has revved up again, and I'm tired. There are too many voices. I mumble that I'm heading to bed and walk out of the room.
My mother follows me though, catching me in the hall. "Are you okay?" she asks. "Is it too much? If it's too much, we can call everything off."
My Husband's Sweethearts Page 12
