He says, “I cut Cynthia’s for thirty years.”
I had almost forgotten about Cynthia. She died a year ago of breast cancer, but even when she was alive she was rarely seen. She was a round, short Italian woman who came over from Italy with her parents when she was a teenager. She married Vince when she was nineteen and he was twenty-five. They never had any kids, and she never went out with him in public. Even after he became mayor, she chose to stay at home, cooking and cleaning. I had spoken with Cynthia once or twice, but we had nothing in common and she was so terribly shy that conversation was painful. She liked Louis, though, and would talk to him in Italian, a language he can understand but not speak. He went to visit her in the hospital during her final stay. I didn’t go with him. I didn’t think it was necessary. The mayor and politics and the land and welfare of Ramsey are Louis’s passion, not mine. After Cynthia died nothing seemed to change much. Vince was still out around town stumping and hand-shaking, still at the barbershop cutting hair.
I try to remember Cynthia’s hair. It was always up in a bun. I feel Vince’s eyes pore over my brown hair, then the angles of my face. “Have a seat,” he says.
I sit down in the chair, which is surprisingly comfortable, if a little slippery. He drapes a gown around me, covering my gray suit. “How’s Louis?” he asks. “Did he send you here?”
I watch my face color in the mirror. I don’t know why. “God, no,” I say. “I actually came here to talk to you about Louis.”
“Close your eyes,” Vince says.
I glance up at him.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s just for a second.”
He sprays my hair with water out of a bottle. When I open my eyes I see a fifty-six-year-old woman in the mirror who appears to have been caught in the rain. I wonder whether this was a good idea.
“Louis has been an amazing friend to me. I wish I could say I’ve been better to him.” He smoothes his hand over my wet hair, evening the pieces on either side of my face. “I started drinking in the evenings after Cynthia passed away—Louis must have told you that. He’s had to pick me up off the floor several times, literally and figuratively.”
“Louis never mentioned it,” I say. I don’t really know what to make of this. Why would this man share this with me? How am I supposed to respond? “But he hasn’t said much to me lately at all. That’s partly why I’m here.”
“You need my help?” Vince sounds surprised.
I breathe in wet air tinged with hairspray. “Louis is depressed. I thought maybe you could talk to him. Try to cheer him up. Tell him that he needs to pull himself together. He won’t listen to me. I thought that as an old friend you might have a better shot.”
The dog whimpers loudly in the corner, and we both glance over. “Poor thing is plagued by nightmares,” Vince says. He clips at the back of my hair with scissors. I watch the ends fall to the floor. “Louis is still upset about the young man who died?”
“Yes, at least that’s what started the depression. God knows he should be over that by now. It’s not as if it was his fault.”
“It’s nice that you’re so worried about him.” Vince touches my head with his fingertips, smoothing my hair first in one direction, then the other. His fingers are warm against my skin. “Louis’s lucky to have such a wonderful wife taking care of him.”
I wish I wasn’t sitting in front of a mirror during this conversation, watching the lines around my mouth move as I talk, watching myself blush. “You don’t have to report back and tell me what he says. The conversation would be between you and Louis.”
“What if something is really wrong? You wouldn’t want me to tell you?”
“There’s nothing really wrong. He’s just depressed.”
“What if he’s having an affair?”
I glare at him in the mirror. My hand fumbles at the back of my neck for the snap to release the cape draped over me. The surreal quality of this situation hits me. Why did I think this would work? Why would I let this man cut my hair?
“Hold on,” Vince says. “It was a joke! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t think you would take me seriously. Louis would never have an affair. Never. I’ve known him my whole life and he’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. Now I’ve upset you and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”
I settle back in to the chair slowly. “That’s not my idea of a joke,” I say. “I hope you understand that what is going on is a private matter and the utmost discretion—”
“I understand. And of course I’m happy to speak to Louis. No one has done more for me since Cynthia died than your husband.” He meets my eyes in the glass. Beside us, around us, my hair continues to fall away. I am getting lighter and lighter.
“Don’t tell him I asked you to do this.”
“Of course not.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I’ve liked talking to you,” he says. “You have that same gift Louis has—you make me feel like everything’s going to be all right.”
My whole body is hot. This feels wrong; it feels like too much. This man is too honest, too present. I forget why I came here, and I need to leave. I pull a twenty-dollar bill out of my purse.
“I don’t need a blow-dry,” I say, and stand up. I unsnap the cape and push the money into his hand. “It’s warm enough outside. Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, and walks me to the door.
I AM too keyed up when I leave the barbershop to go straight home. I need some time alone to collect myself. I drive toward Route 17 and once there I join the rush of cars, each driver speeding away from his job and his day. I make a U-turn and head in the reverse direction. I pass a stretch of forest, and then the gas station and Houlihan’s. I slow down in front of the restaurant and turn into the Fairmount Motel parking lot. I park near the end of the L-shaped motel, directly in front of Room 111. I finger the room key in my purse for a moment before I get out of the car.
The key makes a smooth clicking noise in the lock, and the door is released. I step inside and flip the light switch. The two lamps on either side of the bed light up. The curtains for the room’s sole window are already shut to block out the sight of the highway. I set my purse down on the bed and walk straight into the bathroom, where I wash my hands with the fresh bar of Ivory soap I left here last week. I dry my hands on a flowered towel Gracie brought home from college. When I walk back into the room I pull the two pillows I bought at the bedding store off the closet shelf and prop them against the headboard. I remove my tan heels and lie down on top of the bedspread. I am supported in a half-sitting position by the firm pillows. Once comfortable, I am completely still, my hands clasped on my waist. I take a deep breath and allow myself to relax.
Sometimes I watch the news here, on the small television in the corner. Sometimes I read one of the novels I have stacked beside the pillows in the closet. But usually I just lie on the bed. I rarely sleep. I simply savor the fact that I am alone, perfectly alone. I don’t have to pretend to be interested or sorry or content or whatever else my family or my employees might want me to be. Here, and only here, can I explore and expose my true self. I can be Kelly McLaughlin Leary: a strong, independent fifty-six-year-old woman.
When I first came here I had no idea who Kelly Leary was. I still am not completely sure, but at least I’m learning. I’d been working to the point of exhaustion for years and had lost all sight of myself. But last year I joined a women’s reading group, mostly so I would have someplace to go one night a week. Louis, after all, is gone four out of five nights a week attending all sorts of meetings. I wanted a change. I wanted something that was my own. I had no idea what to expect from the group, but what I found was a lot of discussion in which these women told one another everything about their lives in startling detail. And in between the meetings, we read the same books. At first I was better at the reading than the talking. We chose books about finding our paths and our true selves. I came to re
alize that I had spent my life trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be: a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother. I had done nothing to feed my soul, nothing to set myself free. I mentioned once or twice in the group how frustrating it was to be trapped in the life I had built up around me, and how I craved my own space. After one of our meetings a woman offered me this room. She is from a wealthy family that owns, among other things, a string of motels in northern New Jersey. The Fairmount Motel was not doing particularly well and was never full, so she lets me rent this room for a low monthly fee.
I have had a lot to learn, and to accept. Most of my life I have just lived a moment and then done my best to throw it away. But in this room I have sifted through those moments, through my childhood and my marriage, through those times that got me here. I am a different person today than I was when Louis and I were married. No one ever tells you, when you are young, that your entire personality can change—will change—as you grow older. The twenty-five-year-old Kelly McLaughlin is a completely different woman from the fifty-six-year-old Kelly Leary. My behavior is different, my needs are different. When I was young I needed someone to take charge of me, to take me a few steps away from my family.
When I graduated from college it was my father who told me that despite my high test scores, a woman could only pursue one of two careers: nursing or teaching. I didn’t have the patience for teaching and I couldn’t stand the sight of blood, so I got a job as a salesgirl at Bloomingdale’s. I was bored all day long at work, and then at home every night I listened while my father abused Pat and ridiculed me. I watched my mother hurry from one task to another, one child to another. She appeared deaf to what was being said. To the damage that was being done. I met Louis at Bloomingdale’s. I helped him pick out a suit for a friend’s wedding. I liked how physically large he was—I am five foot nine, but I felt petite beside him. His personality was warm and light. He told a lot of silly jokes and laughed at the punch lines along with me. We went out for coffee, and then dinner, and then suddenly we were an item. I was quiet on our dates, letting him do most of the talking. One night, while driving back to New Jersey from seeing a show in Manhattan, we stopped at a red light and I pointed out a house I liked. This small comment caused Louis to bang the steering wheel with his hand and yelp like a dog. I couldn’t understand what he was saying at first because I was so surprised by the clatter of words. “I have been waiting since we got in the car forty-five minutes ago for you to say one word. I promised myself that I wouldn’t start this conversation—you were going to have to. It was a little test. But forty-five minutes! Jeez, Kelly. Didn’t you have anything you wanted to say about the show, about anything?”
I know that I smiled at him at that moment, amused. I know that I didn’t find my voice until after we were married and I had moved one town away from my family and quit my job at Bloomingdale’s. When, shortly after the trip home from New York, Louis told me that he knew I was the one for him and that we were meant to be together, I chose to believe him. We were married a few months later and I moved from my father’s house to my husband’s house. I had Gracie just before our first wedding anniversary.
I never had a place of my own until this room. It has been mine, and mine alone, for six months now. I have told no one about this place: not my husband, not my daughters. I now have somewhere to go when I’ve had another argument with Louis or when I’ve had my feelings hurt by one of the girls. Or when my mother calls and asks me, once again, to be the head of the family, to convince my brothers and sisters to do something they don’t want to do. To do something I don’t want to do, either. I should be used to having my feelings disregarded by now. I don’t understand why my mother can’t be happy with just me, Gracie, Lila, and Ryan. Why can’t we be enough? There is little point in drawing all of my brothers and sisters and their families together. What you get when we are all in the same room is not love. It is a potent combination of our childhood, my father’s anger, and my mother’s deliberate silence and pointless barbed comments. It is the long, thin, thorny end of the rose.
Sometimes I am bored in the motel room. Sometimes, like today, I can’t get comfortable. I stand up, pace, try the rickety armchair in the corner, peek through the curtains at the rush of the highway. I know that this time is important in my journey to know myself, but occasionally it is unpleasant. I remember shaking Vince Carrelli’s warm hand as we said good-bye, and how we each seemed to hold on to the handshake for a second too long. I flip from thoughts of my mother to my siblings to my daughters, and I feel as if each turn sends me into another brick wall. And then at some point I run out of things to think about altogether, I run out of anger, and I am left feeling blank and empty. Swallowed up in some vague darkness. This is the point when I put the pillows back in the closet, switch off the lights, and leave.
THAT VERY night I am pressed into my role of family liaison. My mother has asked me to make sure all of my brothers and sisters agree to show up for the Easter party. Meggy calls to say that she doesn’t understand why she has to be the one to travel here, when she has less money than any of us. I tell her I would be happy to pay the gas money it would take for her to drive from her house in southern New Jersey to northern New Jersey. My sister-in-law Angel calls to say that Johnny’s antidepressant had been changed, and now that his headaches are better, he’s happier about seeing everyone. Theresa phones to let me know she is baking three pies for the event, even though I had told her that Lila and Gracie are planning to make cookies. Ryan calls to say he is worried about Mother. He says she seemed to have a cloud over her head when she last visited. I am tempted to ask him how he could see a cloud what with all the fat, dirty birds flying around his apartment, but I restrain myself. Of course, I don’t tell Ryan about Mother’s accident; there is no point in upsetting him. Pat is the only one of my siblings who doesn’t call. I had known he wouldn’t, but still I had hoped. But Pat knows the time and the location of the party, and he will show up. He will do his duty, and no more.
Louis comes home while I’m on the phone with Ryan. I take these kinds of calls at the table in the kitchen, where I can pay bills or sort through the mail at the same time. He sits across from me and finishes the leftover Chinese food that was in the refrigerator. While I talk, I eye him to see if he’s spoken to Vince yet. I wonder what he will say about my haircut, which is very short in the back and on the sides. I haven’t decided yet whether I like it, and I trust Louis’s opinion.
When I hang up with Ryan, he says, “I wish you didn’t have so much stress over this party.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to take care of your mother and all of your brothers and sisters. Let them take care of themselves. They won’t fall apart if you put yourself first for once. You know, you could skip this Easter party entirely if you wanted to.”
I stare at him. Sometimes I envy Louis his family, which started out small and then disappeared. Other times I feel badly for his loss. But it is always clear that he has no idea what having a family really means. The ties that crisscross and bind and trip up my brothers and sisters and my mother and me are invisible pieces of thread to my husband. No matter how closely he looks, even when I push his nose right up against the glass, he does not see it. He does not understand.
I say, “Why are you picking a fight with me? You know I have to go to this party. You’re coming with me, right?” This is a question I would never have even thought to ask six months ago. Of course he would be coming with me. He’s my husband.
He shrugs. I don’t know how it’s possible, but his size is always a surprise to me. His shoulders are so wide, they completely block the back of the chair he is sitting on. “Of course I’m going to the party,” he says. “I’m sorry. I just had a strange day, and I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“Strange how?”
“Vince Carrelli made me rearrange my schedule tonight to see him, and then he tried to tell me what my problems are. I swear to God, Kelly,
I almost hit him.”
“Louis!” To hear him even suggest violence is shocking. It is completely out of character. “I’m sure Vince was just trying to be helpful. What did he say?”
He stands up and carries his plate to the sink. “I’ve been taking care of this guy since we were in the fourth grade. He was always picked on as a kid, and I stood up for him. I was the one who kept him from getting beaten to a pulp by his asshole cousin. I tutored him in math throughout high school. If I hadn’t talked him into buying that house by the town pool, he and Cynthia would have thrown away all their savings on rent. And then when he nearly drank himself out of a job this past year, I stopped the board from taking action against him. Jesus, Vince is a career fuck-up. He’s the last person I’d take advice from.”
I shake my head. “Well then, who will you take advice from? Who’s good enough to give you advice? Because you need some, Louis. You sleep on a coffee table every night. When is that going to change? What if people find out what’s going on here?”
He looks very tired, standing on the opposite side of the room. “I don’t mean to make you unhappy, Kelly. Everything is fine. This is only temporary. I’ll be better soon.”
“When is soon? And where do you go every afternoon?” What if he has fallen in love with someone else? What if he is having an affair?
“I never ask you where you go after work or on Saturday afternoons, do I? I trust you. I love you. All I’m asking is that you trust me, too. I’m going through something right now, but it will be fixed soon. Will you just trust me?”
I run my fingers through my new short haircut. It dried naturally in a matter of minutes this afternoon. I think the look will grow on me. It’s fine that my husband, who used to annoy me by noticing every little thing about me, didn’t notice this big change. He is not himself right now. I will cover for him until he comes back to his senses. I will make this household appear the same as always, our marriage unchanged, our habits untouched. I will stick myself in front of his line of vision every chance I get and remind him that I am still here and I am his wife. I can’t say that I trust Louis to pull through this on his own, but I do trust myself to hold everything together. As usual.
Within Arm's Reach Page 11
