Between Husbands and Friends

by Thayer, Nancy

  Kate Cunningham looked at me, and a shield dropped down over her face. “I don’t think so.”

  Oh, no, I thought. She thinks I came over to speak to her because I want to do an article on her. To use her.

  Then I thought: And she’s right. That was one of the reasons I came over. That, and because I was escaping Jiffer Curtis.

  I hadn’t suspected that I might like her, that I might feel something in common with her.

  “Look,” I said, desperately, “would you like to come over for coffee sometime? You could bring Matthew. He could play with Margaret. They could look for bugs in the backyard.”

  Kate shrugged again. “Perhaps.” She headed off toward her son.

  I wanted to weep. This was the most interesting woman I’d met since I’d moved to Sussex, the first woman I’d felt that private instantaneous click of connection with, and I’d insulted her.

  “You asshole,” I muttered to myself.

  “Did you say something?” Anita Walton asked pertly.

  “I said I have to go,” I responded snappily, and crossed the room to take my daughter’s chubby hand.

  That night, in bed, I told Max about my encounter with Kate Cunningham. We were lying facing each other, heads on pillows, in the dark. We could talk like this for hours, knowing we ought to go to sleep, but wanting to confide just one more thing. The bed was the core of our relationship: We made love here, I had nursed our daughter here, here we plotted how the newspaper would approach the town’s gossip, politics, and business. Sometimes I felt like our bedroom was the warm center of all of Sussex.

  “I liked her so much, and I’m afraid I offended her.”

  “It’s common knowledge that the Cunninghams bought the most historic property in town. It’s not offensive to want to write about it. Maybe she’s just a bitch.”

  “No, Max,” I insisted. I didn’t know why, but I wanted my husband to like Kate Cunningham, or at least not dislike her. “I think it was that she thought I approached her under false colors. Trying to be her friend, and then suddenly becoming press. Intrusive.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Max said, yawning. “Anyway, they’re going to begin renovations on the Congregational Church. That can be our historical focus this week.”

  I lay awake long after Max’s breathing had deepened. I envied my husband’s ability to fall instantly into sleep. I always had to wrestle myself out of consciousness, and often the sound of his easy, profound slumber would make me so frenzied with envy that I’d have to stumble from the bed clutching my pillow to collapse on the living room sofa, where I’d twist and turn, trying to get comfortable, suddenly waking to a new morning.

  June 1998

  The children have only one more week of school, so we have only one more week of these crazy mornings when we’re all in the kitchen bumping into one another as we get ready to rush off into our day. Jeremy’s cough has disappeared; he’s eating well and he’s full of energy. I’m busy with the complicated work of French-braiding Margaret’s hair while Max stands at the counter, fixing Jeremy’s lunch.

  “Dad,” Jeremy moans. “You put apple slices in. I don’t want apple slices!”

  “Apples are good for you, buddy. You like apples.” Max uses his most cajoling voice.

  “Not at lunch I don’t like apples! Not slices! They get all brown and yucky! I want apple cookies!”

  From under the table comes a wet retching noise.

  “Gross, Mom,” Margaret says, announcing the obvious. “Midnight barfed again.”

  “Midnight barfed!” Jeremy echoes, giggling.

  Max is a master conciliator, at home as well as at work. “Jeremy, I tell you what. I’ll put apple cookies in if you’ll promise to try one apple slice, okay?”

  “Okay …” Jeremy drags out the word to express his reluctance.

  “Voilà, ma belle. Your coiffure eez parfait.” I kiss the top of Margaret’s head lightly and turn to pour myself another cup of coffee.

  Margaret asks, “Can a cat have an eating disorder?”

  “The limo leaves in five minutes, kids,” Max tells them.

  The phone rings. Margaret dives for it, answers, hands it to me.

  Kate’s voice is bright. “So, are we still on for today?”

  I turn my back to my family. My voice is low and even. “Kate. Don’t do this.”

  “Great! I’ll come to your house and then we’ll go to the community center to register.”

  “Kate. Come on.”

  “Mom!” Jeremy yells. “I can’t find my baseball cards.”

  “Kate, I’ve got to get the kids off to school.”

  “Right, I’ll pick you up,” Kate chirps. “About one, okay? You’re a doll. See you!”

  I hang up the phone and tell Jeremy, “Your baseball cards are in their albums. You put them there last night, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah!” Jeremy grins and streaks from the room.

  “Are you okay for driving Jeremy to T-ball after school?” Max asks, coming out of his study with his briefcase in one hand and a sheaf of faxes in the other.

  “You bet.” Without warning, my stomach sends up a huge bubble of fear. My heart races. I’m going to faint.

  Margaret asks, “Mom, did you sign my permission slip for the museum trip?”

  “It’s on the refrigerator. Pig magnet.” My lips are cold. My fingertips are icy, too. A band tightens around my chest. Grabbing some paper towels, I kneel beneath the table and concentrate on breathing.

  “Mommy, what are you doing?” Jeremy asks.

  “Cleaning up Midnight’s breakfast.”

  My family talks and moves as if on the other side of a looking glass. On the other side of the universe.

  I think: I’m having an aneurysm. At the same time I notice with an eerie sense of responsible calm that I hadn’t spotted all the marinara sauce Jeremy spilled last night; the back leg of his chair is streaked and sticky.

  Margaret’s legs plant themselves near my vision. On this sunny June day she wears a loose long-sleeved button-down shirt of her father’s, baggy jeans, and heavy black Doc Martens. “Can I ask Jenny to spend the night Friday?”

  “Sure.” My heart slows down. Like a tide, the pressure in my chest and head slowly but definitely recedes. My breath comes more easily. “As long as you both understand you’ve got to practice piano Friday afternoon.”

  “I know.” Margaret sighs. It’s her choice to take piano lessons and to perform in the summer concert, but recently Margaret is putting distance between us, making me responsible for anything slightly unpleasant in her life.

  I rise carefully, not wanting to upset my equilibrium. I toss out the cat puke, wash my hands, smack kisses onto my children’s foreheads.

  “Come on, guys.” Max bends down to kiss me good-bye, then herds our children out the door to the car.

  I stand in the familiar messy kitchen, as exhausted as if I’ve just returned from outer space.

  Grabbing up the phone, I punch the speed dial button for Kate’s number.

  “We’re sorry we can’t come to the phone right now …”

  I slam the phone down.

  Immediately it rings. I snatch it up. “Kate?”

  “Sorry, no, it’s Jared Falconer. Is that you, Lucy?” His voice is deep and rumbly.

  I stand frozen like a deer caught in the headlights. “Oh. Hello!”

  “I was wondering if you’ve had time to think about our offer.”

  “Jared, honestly, I haven’t. I haven’t even mentioned it to Max yet. With school ending and everything …”

  “I don’t want to rush you. Take your time. We wouldn’t expect you to start until September.”

  “That’s good. That’s helpful.”

  “Would you like to come in and meet some of the staff?”

  “Perhaps later …”

  “Good. Just give me a call. Nice talking to you, Lucy.”

  I stare into space, biting my lips, drumming my nails on the counter
, then give myself a shake. I pour my cup of coffee down the drain, make some herbal tea, and go out the back door.

  Sighing, I collapse onto a lawn chair. The sun beats steadily down. Bees buzz among the iris. I hear morning doves. Mourning doves? It’s a haunting, yearning sound.

  Our backyard, now that I take the time to really look at it, could use some TLC. Its uses have changed so rapidly over the years, filled first with sandbox and plastic wading pool, then the playhouse Max built for Margaret, and now the badminton net and croquet wickets for Margaret and her friends and soccer and softballs for Jeremy. I haven’t really done any gardening here, and all at once I’m swept through with a wash of gratitude for the house’s former owner, Mrs. McIntyre, who planted all the perennials that splash the yard with color.

  We did transplant one of Mrs. McIntyre’s rosebushes, which a neighbor’s fast-growing holly tree had put in the shade. I knew little about plants then (I know little now), but I must have done something right, for after it was transplanted, the leaves dried and the bush looked dead, and then, that same summer, new leaves sprouted, and an entire new stem, tender and juicy, grew off the tough, gnarled, woody base.

  Other than that, we never paid attention to the backyard because about the time we bought this house, Aunt Grace died, leaving me her grand old Victorian on Nantucket. Over the years we rented out the Nantucket house in June and July and September, using the rent money to pay for taxes and necessary repairs, saving the month of August for ourselves and, later, the Cunninghams. So when I think of summer, of outdoors, of sunshine and fresh air and respite from all the pressures of daily life, I think of Nantucket, not this backyard.

  In many ways I am more myself in Nantucket than here. Or at least a different kind of self. Freer. More sensual. Less constrained. Certainly I have acted that way.

  Here I sense a kind of watching, a kind of awareness in all the windows of all the houses around me. I have no privacy in this backyard. I have no privacy in this town, really. Always within me is a deep urge, a little gem of discontent, a desire to do something different, something wild … What? Dance naked in the moonlight? Well, perhaps. Is my yearning for a little recklessness related to that queer little attack I just had? Is one part of me, subconsciously aware that I’m terminally ill, telling another part of me to gather my rosebuds while I may?

  Whatever I want to gather, I can’t do it here, where the neighbors might see. I love Sussex. I love it that our children know the police chief, the postman, and ancient Evangeline Champion, the town eccentric who wanders the streets in the formal gowns she wore to college dances sixty years ago. Margaret and Jeremy drink delicious water from the town reservoir and eat fruit and vegetables fresh from the nearby organic gardens. They can walk to a friend’s house safely; they can ride bikes through the town. I rarely begrudge the newspaper or any of the town committees we’re on the time that we spend there.

  But I do feel a certain obligation to be a responsible citizen in every way, and sometimes I resent that. As I grow older, that sense of responsibility seems to fit me better, much like a large dress I’ve been wearing for years and am at last growing into.

  And secretly I find that alarming. I wear L.L.Bean and outlet Gap, but in the closet of my private life lurks a tight black miniskirt, the secret uniform of at least one true part of my soul. And only Kate Cunningham knows.

  It’s funny, but if I had to say whom I’m closer to, who knows me better, I’d have a hard time choosing between my husband and my best friend.

  Oh, of course I’d say Max. We’ve been married fifteen years, since college. He’s seen me in sexual extremes and in labor and having a tantrum in an old bathrobe. We have two children.

  But Kate’s seen a hidden side of me, a side Max doesn’t know. The wild side of me. It always has been Kate who has egged me on to enjoy whatever little bit of wickedness I’ve got left in this aging old responsible body. Of course, I’ve returned the favor.

  But neither Kate nor Max knows everything about me. I have some pretty serious secrets from them both. I haven’t talked with Kate about the job offer. She’ll go gaga, she’ll insist that I take it. And whether I do or don’t take the job, she’ll understand. In many ways she understands me more than Max does. But how long can I continue to lie for her? Is a secret the same as a lie?

  Summer 1987

  That first year in Sussex, Max nearly lived at the newspaper. I understood. And I was content, feathering my nest, raising my chick, writing obits or articles when Max needed me to, yet having plenty of time to dote on my darling daughter.

  Still I was eager for warm weather. I wanted to feel the sun on my shoulders while Margaret and I planted flowers around the house. So it was a drag when the first week of June came grizzling in all cold and rainy. Margaret developed a gluey head cold that made her fussy and clingy. She whined all day, wanting me to hold her, carry her, read to her, and then pushing me away when I tried to wipe the green mucus that bubbled out of her chapped nose. Her silky dark curls became damp and matted. Patches of red bloomed on her cheeks. She fought me terribly when I tried to take her temperature, even though I tried to make it into a game. Outside the rain drizzled down the windows while the wind battered and whipped the tender new leaves of trees and flowers. I think I read The Cat in the Hat forty-seven times that week. I slopped around in jeans, moccasins, and sweatshirts, tissues tucked in every pocket, singing nonsense songs to cheer Margaret as I fixed dinner with her riding my hip like a baby monkey.

  By Friday night, Margaret’s cold abated. Saturday the sun came out, the temperature shot up, and Margaret’s body was once again inhabited by her real self, a happy, busy, independent little girl.

  That spring Max had agreed to be umpire for the Boys’ and Girls’ Club’s minor league, two teams of nine- to twelve-year-old boys who played every Tuesday and Saturday afternoon. I thought it would be fun for Margaret to watch her father; I thought it would be bliss simply to get out of the house. I put on a flowered summer dress and put Margaret in a yellow playsuit. She in turn dressed Betsy, this week’s favored doll, in yellow, too.

  “Okay, Sunshine, let’s hit the road!” I said to Margaret.

  “Okay, Sunshine, let’s hit the road!” Margaret said to Betsy.

  I buckled her into the car seat and sang “Take Me out to the Ball Game” all the way to the school playground.

  The roads leading to the playing fields were lined with cars. I parked, unbuckled and lifted my sweet-smelling child from her car seat. Now she squirmed and refused to be carried, insisting on walking, each of us holding one of Betsy’s tiny hard plastic hands. As we neared the metal bleachers, my heart lifted at the sight of the broad green fields spreading beneath the cloudless blue sky.

  “See Daddy?” I exclaimed, pointing. “He’s standing behind the catcher, there, by the fence.”

  “See Daddy?” Margaret asked her doll. “Wave to Daddy, Betsy.”

  I knew everyone there, at least by name. Some of the men were in T-shirts and jeans. Many had come directly from work and stood rolling up their shirtsleeves and undoing their ties while they watched. Some of the women wore short-shorts already; others, not able to believe that the cool weather had finally ended, were in jeans and sweatshirts. I felt light and feminine in my flowered dress; the chance to don it was probably the true reason I’d come out to the ball game. I was yearning for flowers, loose fabrics, the sun on bare skin. But I’d been a good mother; I’d rubbed my daughter’s chubby limbs with sunblock, and dabbed some on her little pink nose.

  “Margaret!” Amy, one of my daughter’s playgroup friends, spotted her, raced toward us, and led her off toward a group of little girls.

  I joined Amy’s mother. “I intended for this to be a chance for Margaret to see her daddy in action.”

  Sandy Granger smiled. “And I thought Amy would want to cheer for Tom.” She nodded toward her nine-year-old son, playing shortstop for the Yankees. “She does have occasional spurts of enthusiasm. Whenever
the crowd applauds, she yells ‘Go, Tom!’ whether he’s on the playing field or not.”

  I laughed. “They’re probably too young. We won’t stay long, but it’s nice to get out in the sunshine.”

  Amy had brought a blanket which she spread beneath the bleachers. She and Margaret and two other little girls settled there, whispering busily. I sat down on a bleacher and leaned my elbows on my knees. Max wore a chest guard and a face mask. He didn’t see me; his concentration on the game was total. I liked the authority of his decisions, the way he bellowed when he yelled “Ball!” or “Stee-rike!”

  The pitcher was good, throwing more strikes than I thought a kid his age was capable of, and the batters who were struck out did commendable jobs of controlling their quivering chins and teary eyes. All the little boys were so cute in their uniforms, the Red Sox in red, the Yankees in blue. Some of the boys were all knees and elbows while the older boys were beginning to acquire paddings of prepubescent fat. The batboy was the cutest, perhaps only seven years old, and not much bigger than the bat.

  “Come on, Mikey! You can do it, Mikey!” The mother next to me screamed so much her voice was hoarse. “I can’t help it,” she told me. “He struck out in the last inning when the bases were loaded. If he doesn’t get one hit in this game he’ll be one miserable little son of a gun.”

  The sun fell like a blessing on my face, the sky was blue and infinitely high, the air fresh and fragrant with the smell of new-mown grass. In the further field, a mixed-sex soccer game was in process. The players were college age, all of them tall, lean, and already tanned. As I watched one young woman in a red shirt and very short shorts swivel and dart between two young men, I found myself wondering how she could do it. How she could concentrate on the game. I would have been paralyzed by sensual sensations. I was nearly paralyzed by sensual sensations now, a married mother watching children play ball. It was the warmth of the day, the fragrance of the grass … it was the proximity of the other men, all heights and sizes, watching with their arms folded or lounging back on the bleachers, suddenly yelling, “All right!” I loved men, I thought, and it suddenly hit me that I’d like to sleep with them all.