Between Husbands and Friends

by Thayer, Nancy

  Downstairs I kiss Jeremy, go over the rules for the thousandth time with him and Margaret, and then Max comes down the stairs, handsome in his navy blue blazer, his black curls glistening from the shower.

  “Have fun, Dad!” Jeremy cries.

  I can see the effort it takes Max to make his way through his dark self-absorption to answer, “Thanks, son. Be good.”

  As we ride together to the Curtises’ home, I ask, “Are you okay, Max?”

  He sighs. “Don’t start.”

  “Max, you’re beginning to take it out on the children.”

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind. That’s reality. They have to learn that.”

  “Is there anything other than the CDA business troubling you?”

  He makes a kind of snorting noise. “Does there need to be?”

  “Have you talked to Paul about it?”

  Max turns on the radio, plays with the dial, finds a talk show.

  “Max.” I reach over and touch his hand. “Don’t shut me out.”

  He moves his hand away from mine and turns up the volume on the radio.

  Jiffer Curtis, our hostess, has opened her house and her expansive, elaborate garden, as a fund-raiser for the hospital. Young men dressed in white button-down shirts and khakis stand at the front door of her mansion, waiting to park our cars. Max chats to them all; we know these boys; Max coached them years ago in Little League.

  As we walk around the side of the vast brick house, the sky turns dark and ominous with clouds, and a breeze begins to stir. I stand for a moment, just taking in the view: The garden is a masterpiece, formal, tended, with high and low hedges making little rooms here and there, and clever topiary standing like statues near the fishpond and the gazebo and the teahouse. Everyone in town is here, looking gorgeous. I love this town.

  Max doesn’t stop but heads straight for the drinks table. By the time I make it through the crowd I see that our hostess has cornered him.

  “I don’t see,” she trumpets furiously, “why you don’t do more with your editorials to support the hospital.”

  “Jiffer. There are seventy-three nonprofit organizations in Sussex alone,” Max points out reasonably. “I have to be fair.”

  “But surely the hospital is the most important!”

  “And that’s why I’m so glad they have you to head their fund-raiser,” Max says, smiling. He takes her arm and leans toward her as he continues to speak in his charming, rational way.

  Why can he do this? I wonder, watching him. Why can he summon up so much energy for his fucking newspaper and community, and so little for his own family?

  A breeze sweeps past. I shiver. One fat drop of rain plops down on my nose.

  “What a bother!” Jiffer exclaims, glaring at the sky. “I’d better tell the caterers to move things inside.” She waddles officiously away.

  Max and I join the throngs pouring into the enormous house and make our way through the “library” where a television set the size of a twin bed reigns supreme, to the billiard room.

  Chip and Kate are here talking to John Galware, the dentist, and his wife, who’ve just returned from two weeks touring along French canals. With one smooth, elegant turn, Chip cuts me out of the group so that we’re standing face-to-face, his back blocking us from the others.

  “You look sensational tonight, Lucy.”

  His low voice and intense gaze stir me, hold me captive. Outside, the storm gathers strength. Rain beats against the windowpanes, and a few brave souls who waited too long rush in through the French doors, laughing like children and breaking into our brief liaison.

  “I’m drenched! Lucy, darling, hello! And Max!”

  We’re kissed, hugged, greeted, then the wave of friends moves on to other rooms, taking the Galwares with them, leaving Chip and me with Max and Kate.

  “New jacket?” Max asks.

  Chip smiles. He’s wearing a beautifully cut cream linen blazer. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  “It’s all right for some,” Max responds, his voice bantering. “Those who can afford hand-tailored clothes.”

  “Come on, you wouldn’t wear it if you could afford it,” Chip says. “It would spoil your intellectual image.” He looks at me. “How do you like your lit class?”

  My eyes flash to Kate’s.

  “Lit class?” Max asks.

  “It was Lucy’s idea,” Kate says shamelessly. “She’s thinking of working on her Aunt Grace’s book about Dorothy Wordsworth, but felt she needed to review all the poetry and stuff.”

  “I didn’t know you were doing that,” Max says, turning to me, his brow wrinkled.

  I feel Kate’s eyes on me, a fierce grip. One false move on my part and she tumbles into an abyss.

  “I just decided,” I say. “Classes just started.”

  “But how can you handle the kids and Write?/Right?”

  “It’s only two hours a week in the late afternoon,” Kate interjects, leaning forward. “Tuesdays and Thursdays at the community center.”

  “But what about Nantucket?”

  “I don’t have to finish it. I’m not taking the course for credit.” It’s odd, how Max’s reaction, his disapproval, makes me get my back up. I find myself strenuously defending a lie. “I just wanted someone to get me started. I need a syllabus and a reading list.”

  Kate says, “Lucy and I can continue to read while we’re on Nantucket, and we can discuss the readings with each other.”

  “But what about the kids?” Max asks.

  “Duh,” I say. “They’re at camp.”

  “In the late afternoon? I thought camp ends at three.”

  Kate laughs. “Did I say late afternoon? I meant early afternoon. Lucy and I discuss metaphors and similes on the way to picking up the kids.”

  “I’m glad you’re doing this, honey,” Max says. “I think you’ve been wanting to work on this Dorothy Wordsworth thing for some time.”

  I smile up at my honest husband, suddenly flushed with love for him because he has forced his way through the weighted dark of his soul to wish me well.

  I feel Chip’s eyes on me, judging.

  “Kate!” I say brightly. “Want to play billiards?”

  “You bet.” She sets her drink on the table and rises and follows me to the other side of the room. As we take our cues from the cabinet, she whispers, “I owe you big time for this.”

  “It’s got to stop, Kate,” I hiss in return.

  “And it will stop,” she retorts, stiffening her spine. “And sooner than I’d ever want. When Garrison dies.”

  I look at my friend in her sleek black dress. Her eyes are shadowed and sorrow has bracketed her mouth with parentheses.

  “You break,” I tell her, as we move toward the green table and the striped balls.

  Summer 1988

  The August that Matthew and Margaret were four, Kate and I once again headed for Nantucket. This time the plans were that Kate and her son would stay for three weeks. The men would join us for a week at the end of the month.

  Probably.

  Max was immersed in his newspaper, in his responsibilities to his town. Over the past year he’d become an expert on every aspect of Sussex, from the dog catcher’s illegitimate baby to the background of the new board members of the Sussex Bank. Nothing escaped his interest—he cared about the sewage treatment facility, about where every single high school student was headed for college, who was raising money to have the Methodist church painted, who was getting married or divorced or having babies.

  This didn’t leave him a lot of time or energy for a home life. I didn’t mind, most of the time. Max was nearly delirious with the sense of being exactly where he wanted to be, at the heart of an American town as it sped at warp speed through the last part of the twentieth century. I was content in a more languorous way, loving the freedom I had to spend time with my daughter or to prepare elaborate meals for dinner parties. Each week I wrote an article or two for the paper, filling in whenever Max needed. I helped out at
the Little Red Schoolhouse two mornings a week. I talked to Kate about ten times a day on the phone. Where I was needed, I was there. My life was full.

  Kate was cranky during the drive down to Hyannis, and on the ferry she curled up and slept, leaving me to watch M&M, who were hyper with excitement and wanted to run as fast as they could all over the boat, tripping over feet and dogs. The three of us stood at the deck, watching the island come into view, but Kate headed on down to the car.

  “Hey,” I said to her when we were back in the Volvo, disembarking from the car deck, “what’s up with you?”

  “I’ll tell you tonight.”

  This time we’d taken a morning boat so that we could get the frazzled rush of stocking up on groceries and making beds and organizing the house over with on the first day. It seemed an eternity until we had the children tucked away, having threatened direly that if they got up once more we wouldn’t take them to the beach the next day. When Kate and I finally collapsed together on the screened porch, Kate rose one more time, went into the kitchen, and returned with Dove bars. One for me. One for Kate. Kate, slim, glamorous Kate, never ate ice cream.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Smith and Smith called me yesterday. They’re letting me go.”

  “You’re kidding! How can they? Why?”

  “They want younger models.”

  “But Kate. Why? You haven’t gained a pound or a wrinkle anywhere!”

  “It’s not your kind eye that’s judging me, it’s their camera.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Just two days ago. I haven’t even told Chip yet.”

  “Well, he won’t care, will he? It’s not as if you needed money.”

  “No, not that. But he did like the cachet it gave me. The way it added to his image. Hotshot lawyer with a model for a wife. I feel like I’m letting him down.”

  “Aren’t there other modeling jobs?”

  “Oh, sure. My agent’s already lined up some for the fall, mostly benefit fashion shows. But still …”

  “This really sucks, Kate. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.” We sat in silence, then she said, “It’s not like it’s where my heart’s at. I never wanted to be a model. My first job just fell into my lap when I was at college at B.U., and I’ve continued doing it ever since. In a way I’m relieved. I won’t have to diet so much.”

  “Still,” I said, “it’s an insult.”

  She nodded. “It is. And it hurts. It’s like someone’s stopped loving me.” She began to cry, softly.

  “Oh, Kate. No one important has stopped loving you.”

  “I know. I know. But I’m getting old, Lucy, and I hate it. I’m getting old and ugly.”

  I burst out laughing. “Please! Let’s not get carried away!”

  But I suppose that getting carried away was exactly what Kate needed, why she did what she did, that summer.

  We had agreed to give ourselves another night of dancing. We’d been planning it all year, really. Sometimes at enormous cocktail parties in Boston, we’d see a handsome stranger, and we’d whisper to each other, “I wonder if he ever goes to Nantucket.” We joked about making up cards to carry in our wallets to hand out to any sexy guys who caught our fancy:

  The Muse. Nantucket.

  August 21. See you there.

  Once we were on the island, we thought about dancing constantly. We’d planned to wait until the last week, a reward for being perfect mommies, when we were all tanned and relaxed from the sun.

  But we couldn’t wait. When, that first weekend, both our husbands called to say they couldn’t come because of crises at work, we hired a babysitter for Saturday night and went out.

  The Muse was more crowded than before. You couldn’t get to the bar without squeezing through ten thousand young male bodies. By the time we had our beers, our foreheads were damp with sweat and our voices were already hoarse from yelling at each other. The band had a female lead singer, and she was great and crazy, wailing and screaming, shaking her spiky black head and hitting her undulating hips with a tambourine.

  This time Kate was the first to be asked to dance, by a tall guy with a long ponytail. The beat of the wild screaming music was so contagious that I downed my beer and was practically dancing with the bottle when someone came up and pulled me out onto the floor. I almost fainted when I got a better look at him: This man was ugly and mean-looking, I realized with a thrill of horror. His teeth were bad, crooked and discolored, and his face was terribly pitted from what must have been a hideous case of acne. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt and heavy steel-toed cowboy boots. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days. A tattooed snake writhed up his forearm. When he smiled he looked like he was about to bite me. He was one scary dude, and I couldn’t believe I was dancing with him. I entirely loved it that I was.

  We danced all night. He bought me a beer. His name was Herb and he worked for a moving company. He and his buddies had just delivered a vanload of furniture to the island and were leaving on the morning ferry.

  I told him I was a senior at Northeastern, working here this summer as a chambermaid for a hotel.

  He believed me. He totally believed me. I couldn’t wait to tell Kate. I felt gorgeous and young, and I hated it when I looked at my watch to find that it was after midnight.

  I said good-bye to Herb and wound my way through the crowd. Kate was still with Ponytail, and they were both drenched with sweat, their clothes clinging to them.

  She and Ponytail were staring at each other as if entranced. I had to grab her and pull her near me to get her attention.

  “It’s after twelve. We’ve got to go.”

  “You go on!” she shouted. “I’ll come home later.”

  “The bar has to close at one.”

  Kate turned and gave me a look that I couldn’t interpret. “I’ll come home later,” she said, enunciating each word distinctly, as if it were a code.

  “Kate—”

  “Just leave the front door unlocked.”

  “All right.”

  When I stepped out into the night air, the quiet and coolness unnerved me. It was as if a pressure were lifted from me, and I stumbled. I’d alternated beer and Perrier all evening, but my legs were weak and wobbly. Where was the Volvo? To the right? To the left. There, at the far end of the lot. I went toward it on Jell-O legs.

  I opened the door and collapsed onto the seat. It was bliss to sit, and for a few moments that was all I did. I was slightly uneasy about leaving Kate at the bar, but she was a big girl, she could take care of herself. She wasn’t drunk. She’d get home okay. And I had promised the babysitter we’d be back by midnight. I put the key in the ignition.

  At home, all was quiet. Sadie could walk home; good thing, since I didn’t want to leave sleeping children alone. Kate was still dancing. I smiled. I couldn’t blame her.

  I checked on the children one more time, then fell on my bed, exhausted. My teeth could wait until morning to be brushed. My entire body felt like a lead weight. I went out like a light.

  I woke at three in the morning, sitting up, heart pounding in alarm. It wasn’t that I’d heard something. It was more that I hadn’t heard something. I went through the house without turning on a light; I knew the house well and the summer sky was bright with moonlight that fell through the windows in silver strips.

  Kate wasn’t in her room. I checked Margaret and Matthew; they were fine. Kate wasn’t downstairs, passed out on the sofa, or in the kitchen having a drink of water. She wasn’t in the house.

  “Damn it, Kate!” I whispered. What should I do? What could I do? Call the police and report a truant mommy? I knew from rumor, not experience, that there were parties on the beaches every summer night; perhaps she had gone off with someone. That had to be what she was doing. I imagined her dancing on the sand, the ocean lapping nearby, streaked with moonlight. I was sure that was what she was doing. Wasn’t I?

  I took two aspirin and curled up on the sofa, fumi
ng. How irresponsible of her, how selfish, how arrogant! Here I was, feeling like her mother, worried that she’d been in a car wreck or abducted by drunks. I curled down into the cushions, resting my head on the arm of the sofa. Could I describe the guy she was dancing with to the police? He was tall. He had a ponytail. Black hair, or maybe brown; it had been too dark to tell and I hadn’t really paid attention. He was cute, there was a helpful clue. I moaned. Most of the young adults had to work; wouldn’t they have gone off to bed by now?

  Had Kate gone to bed with that guy?

  My eyes flew open, as if I could see her.

  Kate wouldn’t go to bed with that guy. She loved Chip. She had a happy marriage.

  What if that guy were assaulting her in some way? Perhaps I should call the police.

  But they wouldn’t do anything. Not yet. Kate wasn’t really missing. If she wasn’t home in time for breakfast with her son, then I’d call the police.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost five o’clock. My mouth was stale and my skin felt like leather. My eyes burned. I was dizzy. I needed a shower. I needed to brush my teeth. I desperately needed to sleep.

  I closed my eyes and let my body sag into the sofa. I was almost asleep when I heard a car approach. I shot straight up in the air and went to the window and looked out. The car passed on by. I returned to the sofa.

  “Lucy,” someone said softly.

  I opened my eyes. Kate was bending over me. I was sprawled half on, half off the sofa, and my neck and shirt were wet with drool.

  I sat up, wiping my chin with my hands, pushing back the straw that had once been my hair, trying to orient myself in this world. “Where have you been?” I looked at my watch. “It’s six-thirty. Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Lucy, we just went to someone’s house.”