“It’s called instant gratification.”
“Never touch the stuff.”
“Then, Alix, you’re out of step.”
“Sure I am. You’re with a certifiable corkscrew.” And rising on her espadrilles, she kissed his cheek.
In the cool, rarefied atmosphere of rejection, she had managed—with well-known Schorer charm—to shift the onus from rejected to rejectee. From any other girl he would have accepted it, figuring next time, babe, next time. But walking down the long, dingy hall, he muttered, “Frigid bitch,” aloud, remembering how often he had left her with these words on his lips. The front door was inset with a stained-glass mermaid. You can’t step into the same river twice, you can’t relive the past. Roger was dead. Alix the same all-American tease. His policy of forget-what-can’t-be-helped applied here. Vliet was not given to dramatic gestures, yet pausing in the streetlight, he flipped through his little black book (gold-cornered Gucci) to S. He crossed and recrossed through her name and number.
Alix sat on the edge of her tub, her back straight, her muscles stiff. She heard his Mercedes start and fade into the night. For five minutes she was motionless. Then she stood in front of the mirrored door, looking at herself. At the worst times she had seen nothing in mirrors. Now a girl stared at her with dark, frightened eyes. Was this what other people saw? She lifted her hand, examining the reflected wrist. The hand in the mirror shook.
Turning away, she unbuttoned her jacket, giving it a little shake, examining collars and cuffs for any line however faint to indicate a trip to the cleaners. None. Meticulously she placed shoulder seams to padded hanger. She arranged her pants, cuff to cuff. She hung jacket and pants on the hook above the mirror. Tying back her hair, she washed her face then peered, examining her eyebrows. Continents might shift if one unplucked stub remained.
In bed, propped on her pillows, she opened her bedside drawer. Always a list maker, Alix had incorporated into her night routine, no matter how late it was, a noting of items to discuss the following morning. She saw Dr. Emanual each weekday at eight. Along with the pad, she inadvertently fished out an earlier note (she saved them compulsively) written in a large, unfamiliar hand: why always blood? isn’t death the ultimate desertion? The big letters wobbled crazily.
She pushed the scrap far into the drawer, writing in her usual neat hand:
it was a mistake to tell him i was terrified. i almost left the apartment a half hour before he was due, but forced myself to wait. lizard, does that earn me a gold star?
why couldn’t i let him kiss me?
She sat among her pretty flowered pillows questioning the evening. Alix, vigilant. She might walk and talk like others, but she knew she was not like them. Once you lose your footing, once you’ve slipped into the crevasse, you never can escape the black ice.
Eventually she folded her list. She waited for sleep.
4
Under taut hospital linen, her body had dragged her into the safety of sleep. Food and sleep, that was what she needed.
Always she was empty. When her trays arrived, she would lift the covers: she, who always had been delicate, grabbed with fingers, dribbling down her hospital smock. Finishing, she would reach for a snack. She would find bear claws sticky with sugar, or a box of stale vanilla wafers, or Twinkies, or a pair of bran muffins bridged by a neat square of butter, or See’s chocolate softened by warm hospital air. It didn’t matter. Food was not for taste. Food was for the emptiness.
She got to know her ceiling. The chaotic soundproofing squares sagged like wet patchwork.
Once—fluorescent tubes held back the ceiling and therefore it was night—her mother wept. Warnings floated around Alix. Terrified, she didn’t dare move on her barred bed. She watched amber eyes and twin trickles. Then the lights cracked and the ceiling gave way, oozing red. Alix screamed and screamed and screamed, frantic to make someone understand that the holes were leaking blood.
And after that the ceiling tormented her.
And after that, she didn’t know whether it was the same week or month or year or century, Dr. Emanual came. A voice lacking condescension and a saurian mouth. Dr. Elizard-ual. Lizard. He had understood her. He had protected her.
I can’t sleep with him, I cannot.
Did he suggest it?
No-no.
Then why is it a problem?
I like him. That’s brilliant, isn’t it? I like him and am terrified of sleeping with him. Or anyone. Don’t you think we’re wasting Father’s money?
You’re my star patient.
Sure.
Why must you demand so much of yourself? We’ve made progress, so much progress. It’s taken tremendous courage on your part to get this far.
(Long silence.)
In high school, sometimes before I went to sleep I’d have this fantasy. I was living in another time.
What other time?
Oh, not real long ago.
Your mother’s time?
When she was in school, yes.
Why then?
You want me to say I was jealous and unresolved about her? But isn’t that a mite obvious?
Or too difficult to deal with?
No-no. But in the forties sex was taboo.
(Dr. Emanual chuckled.)
Shrinks aren’t meant to laugh, Lizard. It was more programmed then. You know, there were codes.
Does it reassure you to believe people lived by the Hayes Office?
That’s not the point.
What is the point?
She didn’t have to. When she didn’t, nobody hated her.
Are you saying Vliet hates you, Alix?
Yes. Now he hates me. Maybe he always did.
From what we’ve discussed, I’d say the reverse were true.
You didn’t see the way he bolted down the hall, leaving me. Oh God!
Is how he feels so important?
You know how everybody feels about me is important. This especially.
Why?
I told you. I like him. For God’s sake, he’s Roger’s brother.
Alix, I want you to think about this. You’ve characterized last night as threatening. Very. Do you think it’s wise to see him again?
Don’t worry. He won’t call.
He went about his routine. Behind the turreted Assyrian corporate offices built by his great-grandfather were two huge warehouses. Distribution Centers Nos. 1 and 2. They were filled with nine thousand different items to be distributed to seventy-three stores. Currently they were changing over to computer, with the inevitable screw-ups. Joe McAllister was out with back trouble. Vliet was swamped. He didn’t call Alix. Whenever he thought of her, he told himself, Don’t call.
Sunday nights he reserved for his parents. The last Sunday in August they went to an Omega Delta alumnae barbecue. Vliet said to himself, what the hell, and got out his little black book. He couldn’t make out the crossed-over number. He surprised himself by remembering it.
Alix sounded pleased. She invited him for dinner, that is, if he didn’t mind Sam.
“Sam? I think I do mind. Isn’t he the one in wholesale blouses?”
“Idiot!” she laughed. “Sam. My brother.”
Sam opened the door. Skinny, with Chinese eyes, ears that stuck out, and a lot of curly brown hair. Harpo, Vliet thought. What is he? Nine?
Vliet sniffed. “Pizza?”
“Alix is no peasant. Veal parmigiana.”
And Alix called from the kitchen, “Fix yourself a drink.”
Bottles sat on the coffee table. “What’s yours?” he called back.
“Scotch for me,” Sam said. “Alix doesn’t drink. She’s waiting for NoCal vodka.”
“If you’re so funny,” Vliet demanded, “why don’t you have your own talk show?”
The phone rang four times. Sam answered, “She’s in La Jolla.”
The veal was white (unattainable at your local Van Vliet’s) and excellently seasoned, accompanied by romaine salad and gnocchi she’d made herself. S
he sipped the Vouvray he’d brought, absently picking at her food.
Vliet poured her another glass. “To the pride of Weight Watchers,” he said.
“Food lost its charm after my former debauches.”
“Alix was formerly Godzilla,” Sam said, puffing out his cheeks.
“Why don’t you shut up and clear off the dishes?” Vliet asked.
“Alix is the one with waitress experience.”
Vliet laughed, pouring a few drops of wine in the boy’s Pepsi. “I even hate your kid brother.”
Across dirty dishes, Alix smiled. He could compose a million songs about that smile, mysterious, yet the mystery lay in how any smile that perfect of tooth and lip could be mysterious.
Not that they were together every night.
Sundays belonged to his parents. At least three nights a week he remained in his bare office, dining on hamburgers. Family affection among Van Vliets did not reach above a certain managerial level, but what was wrong with that? Here was his Grail. (As Roger had loved medicine, so Vliet pursued a buck.) In the daytime the 275,000 square feet were busy. Conveyor belts carried red plastic baskets and girls packed health-and-beauty items, lift trucks retrieved cartons—canned goods, paper goods, and so on—from thirty feet up. Pallets were stacked according to order sheets from individual stores. Freight trains pulled up to the rear docks. Bananas were hauled from ripening room to ripening room. But at night Vliet would sit alone in his office. He would figure whether it was cheaper to buy Brand X in quantity to inventory (as Joe McAllister preferred doing) or not to get such a good deal but also not to tie up capital. Interest rates were high this fall. Vliet was aware, very, if this went well, he was one step nearer being chief among the Dutchmen.
Once—he had forgotten an inventory he was going over—he drove back with Alix to the warehouse. She was intrigued by the Spartan offices. No receptionist. A red phone on the wall, and underneath, on plain white paper:
PLEASE DIAL THE EXTENSION
LISTED BELOW FOR THE PERSON
YOU WISH TO SEE.
“Vliet Reed, oh-four-nine,” she said. “Shall I dial?”
“We’re the only ones in the office.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah,” he said, leering.
But he never attempted more than a forehead kiss goodnight. Turandot, Puccini’s glacial princess, had asked riddles of her suitors, insoluble conundrums, afterward impaling their idiot heads on the city walls. Rejection hurts.
Why do you keep on?
We have fun. I like him.
You haven’t seen anyone else for two months.
It’s called easing back into normal life.
I’ll be frank with you, Alix. You should stop.
Why?
He can hurt you.
I don’t see how.
You don’t choose to see. In your opinion, have you resolved Roger’s death?
That, I’ll never resolve. No shrink on earth can help me resolve that. You know I still love him.
Let me ask this, then. Have you considered why, of all the men you know, you’ve selected Roger’s twin?
I like him, mind?
He’s not Roger. He’s much weaker than Roger.
Are you saying I’m acting out?
I’m saying he was never able to accept you for more than your unique surface qualities.
So now he’s—God knows—not ready for a freaked-out case?
Does he discuss that aspect?
I told you. Not yet. Is that so bad?
Yes.
Maybe it’s my fault. I haven’t brought it up. Besides, Lizard, you forget one detail. Vliet came first.
I’m not forgetting at all.
(A long silence.)
Oh God. How can I be so chicken?
You’re brave. Under the circumstances, a little too brave.
I have to reach out. Please, you’re meant to help me.
I’m trying to.
Then don’t you see how much I need him?
I see two very troubled people who were involved in a trauma they’re unable to handle. Justifiably. That doesn’t alter the problem. He’s not my patient. You are. He and Roger are connected in your mind.
That’s obvious.
And you and Roger are connected in his.
I suppose so, yes.
And you don’t see the danger?
He resents me and Roger? I doubt if he still could. And if he does, well, I have to risk it. I like him a lot.
That’s why I’m asking you to stop. At this point another rejection, or what you inevitably would consider a rejection, could destroy all we’ve worked for.
5
A white car chased a black car, and Vliet, nursing a brandy snifter, watched. He took his socked feet from the coffee table when Alix returned from stacking her dishwasher. She sat on the couch next to him.
“Which’re the good guys?” she wanted to know.
“In the white car.”
“I should’ve known.”
“What was TV before the auto chase?”
She laughed, the white car swerved around a corner, and there was a woman smirking at her brand of margarine.
Alix shifted closer. Vliet could smell her light perfume. French, he decided. She fingered his hand. Christ, he thought, is this a pass? Her touch drifted toward his arm. She looked at him, her lashes gradually closing. He heard a lyrical My mother never told me about Ultrabrite, and thought, definitely a pass. Leaning forward, not putting his arms around her, he kissed her. He was aware of phrenetic music of the chase, then paid no attention because her lips were opening and in his ears was a roar as if he were being tumbled in surf, and now he did put his arms about her, easing her back into cushions, nothing planned, mind you, yet how long, oh, how long had he anticipated this moment? The skin, as remembered, a finer texture than silk, more like chiffon, and—he sought under the well-fitted shirt—breasts amazingly delicate yet full. She didn’t tense. A distinct improvement. Before, she always had. And he was unbuttoning, unzipping, pulling back clothes. He gave himself over to admiration, half naked, a few strands of shining black hair clinging to her neck, Alix seemed to have arrived from the sea, the foam-born. Venus, for him.
He saw wetness making a path from her eyes to the sides of her hair.
He pulled her clothes together, fastening one button of her shirt. He sat up. Flames rose from the black car. He touched the remote.
“One thing, Alix,” he said. Hurt stuck in his throat like irretrievable celery string, and he gave a small cough. “I can’t be charged with attempted rape.”
She heaved a tremendous sigh and undid the button.
“Believe this or not. Weeping isn’t my turn-on.”
She rose, averting her head, hurrying from the room. He heard water. He smoked. She returned, hair combed, clothes in order, sitting on the far end of the couch.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her hands rested on sharkskin pants. “I wanted to make contact.”
“Haven’t we? The last couple of months?”
“We don’t know one another.”
“Biblically speaking, no.”
“We’ve never talked about Roger.”
“That’s bullshit.”
She closed her eyes. She had applied fresh shadow, brown, in a perfect curve. “We’ve skidded by his name.”
She loves him, Vliet thought, she did from that first day, she still does. Probably she always will. He could feel it in his gut, that weakness, that grappling of love and hate, that sense of being the inferior, lighter half of a twinship.
“What shall we talk about?” he asked lightly. “How strong he was? How decent? His interest in medicine?”
“I just want us to be honest, Vliet.”
“Yeah, Roger was high on honesty.” He kept his tone light, and if his words inflicted wounds, well, who had started this? “Let me guess. Your shrink wants you to define our relationship?”
She nodded.
She’s got me in th
e old psychoanalytic filing system, he thought. Pigeonholing me. With difficulty he went through the mechanics of lighting up.
“Your behavior passes for honesty,” he said. “It passes with me, Alix. Maybe not your fabulous medical-research honesty, but adequate for your routine supermarket clot.”
“Do your parents know you’re seeing me?”
“As one nears the twenty-eight mark, Alix, one doesn’t check in.”
“They don’t know.”
“Why should they?”
“And we’ve never talked about my being crazy.”
“Right off, you dragged in your nervous breakdown.”
“A few sentences. Does that cover eighteen months of insanity?”
Her eyes seemed more intense. The eyes caught him short. Mascara smudged the left. He remembered that nightmare afternoon when he’d failed her under whining jets. The eyes touched him where he hurt. Licking his finger, he leaned toward her, wiping the smudge.
“If talking’s what the shrink ordered,” he said, “fire away, Alix.”
She leaned into the leather couch, staring up. The ceiling was high. Lamps cast fuzzy circles.
“I’m with you,” she said. “I prefer the surface. Smile and keep safe—does that make sense?” She looked at him. “No-no. Of course not. Let’s see if I can explain.”
She frowned, then nodded. “In the hospital I ate all the time. The more I ate, the less I was me. That gross body couldn’t be me, understand? The fat insulated me from myself. And that’s how my personality works. The more smiles and easy talk, the less me.”
“Alix, we all cover up. Let a sleeping neurosis lie.”
“Neurosis?” she said. “I believed they stored blood, whole blood, in the room over mine. I truly believed. The weight made my ceiling droop. I’d hear a noise and think, Now they’re getting some to take downstairs to Surgery, or, Now they’re doing a dialysis. I mean, I heard them dragging around the aluminum cans. Imagine? After living with Roger, me visualizing blood stored in old-fashioned milk cans! At times the hospital was oversupplied, and then the ceiling would really sag. One night, Mother was there, it started leaking, and nobody would understand. I tried to explain blood was coming down on me. I went berserk. After that they really laid on the stuff. God! Those drugs! They slime your brain, crushing and strangling you, and you’re trapped for eternity. I’d hate Roger for getting killed and leaving me. Of course I tried to kill myself, all nuts do, but I miss him so terribly I would’ve tried, anyway.”
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