Then again, lots of things in life were a matter of degree.
Jim and I had attended one Vonborke party where we’d left soon after someone suggested, in jest, wife swapping. Jim was mumbling as we got in our car.
“As if,” Jim had said as we drove away.
“As if what?” I’d asked.
“As if fucking around is going to fix their existential angst and despair.”
He’d taken my hand as he drove, brought it to his lips, and kissed the back of each of my fingers, lingering on the ring finger on my left hand.
It was bittersweet now to remember that he’d said that.
Selden sighed, looking at me as we turned down my street. “You think she’s in trouble?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that why you’re still walking with me?” What I really wanted to ask him was what, if anything, he intended to do about it, though I knew it’d sound silly. Selden, after all, wasn’t her father, or her husband for that matter.
Henry stirred and started small cries of protest.
I pushed quickly down the last half block to my house, glad to have an excuse to be rid of Selden now.
“You need to get back to your day, yeah?” Selden said, nodding to the baby.
I fished Selden’s bag out of the bottom of the stroller.
“It was good to see you,” I said, handing the sack to him.
He nodded, turned on his heel, and started his walk back down to his car in the grocery store parking lot.
• 25 •
The Falls
A few weeks went by, fueling an uneasy détente between Jim and me. He came home early. He took the baby so I could have a bath, read a book, get out of the house, and go shopping—all without my having to beg, à la Jeff Trenor’s advice. He was tiptoeing around me. Clearly he knew he’d been in the wrong. It made me feel surprisingly awful, like a battle-axe, henpecking wife, like he was cringing around me—a dog waiting to be kicked. Really, we barely spoke. This feeling of guilt made me even shorter with him. Things were rapidly spiraling out of control. And yes, all over one stupid little kiss.
Because what is a kiss really when you get down to it? A meeting of lips, a mingling of breath. Is that really so intimate, so awful? I’d started to convince myself it wasn’t. Not a big deal, a small slip. And each time I was almost convinced, a small voice suggested that perhaps we were now heading down a slippery slope. That first there’s a kiss, and then there’s a tryst. And then I’d be mad all over again.
I was in this cycle—ruminate, rake husband over the coals, feel guilty, repeat—when I went shopping in Chagrin Falls, leaving the baby at home with the sitter. I sped on Fairmount Boulevard, heading east with the stereo loud and the windows down. Driving my car, all alone, made me feel like I was back to myself, back in my body. Still, a funny absence radiated from the backseat, from the empty car seat. So I pushed the pedal down farther and turned the radio up louder and the sun shone brighter.
I had a flash then of being carefree. Of maybe sneaking a smoke and driving to meet someone, some man, for a drink. When I was single this kind of cheerful irresponsibility often included Ellie. She’d be either by my side or meeting me. Immediately I felt tinged with sadness.
I strolled down Main Street feeling free and younger than I had in a year. In my favorite clothing boutique, I bought a little black number in chiffon and gabardine by an Italian designer for too much money. I was feeling optimistic, I guess. Maybe I’d have occasion to wear the dress with Jim as we started to put things back together. The dress looked good on me now; it’d look great after I’d lost a few more pounds.
I was waiting in line for a coffee at the shop next to the falls, with my shopping bag slung over my arm, when a familiar voice and gleaming set of eyes accosted me.
“But where is your baby?” Diana Dorset asked me before even saying hello.
“At home with the sitter.” I smiled. I hadn’t talked to her since her dinner party. “He’s doing so well. So sweet.”
She smiled at me, gripping her huge coffee. I wondered if that was why she always seemed so lively, if caffeine was the fuel for those eyes. She nodded and steered us both through the doors back out into the bright sun. “So great to run into you like this. I can’t get enough of this weather, can you?” she prattled. I wondered if she’d run into Jim if she’d have asked him where his baby was. Of course not. Something about the expectations and requirements of Henry chafed today—maybe it was the sun, maybe the new dress. I knew I was being churlish, ungrateful for my gifts.
“Look at that,” Diana breathed, shaking me out of my self-concern, squeezing my forearm tighter as we walked out into the sun.
Across the street in a parking lot was Ellie’s old and beaten red BMW and next to it was a huge shiny Lexus SUV. The trunk of Ellie’s car was open and she was showing a woman with a Bottega Veneta bag and Fiorentini and Baker boots the contents of her trunk.
“What is she doing?” Diana asked. But I knew exactly what I was looking at.
The woman was smiling and laughing and pointing to something in Ellie’s trunk, then the woman leaned over to rummage around. Ellie smiled, her eyes hidden by her oversized sunglasses. The woman straightened up then with a pile of clothes in her arms.
Diana snorted. “Holy shit, she’s selling her clothes out of the back of her car.” I heard just the faintest glee in her voice, and it reminded me of her schadenfreude that night at her dinner party. Julia Trenor’s warning from Ellicottville rang in my ears. It’s easier to have Diana as a friend than not. I didn’t want to be her friend anymore, but I certainly didn’t want to be on her bad side either. I started leaning away from her, thinking of ways to make a quick departure.
It was then that Ellie turned and looked across the street, almost as if we’d called her name. I could see her blush scarlet under her glasses.
The woman loaded the clothes into her SUV, oblivious to Ellie’s distress and our stares. She fished a wallet out of her bag and handed a wad of bills to Ellie. Ellie took them, furtively stuffed them into her skirt pocket, and slammed her trunk shut.
The woman drove away in her SUV, and I turned to Diana. We’d both been so enrapt watching the transaction that we’d not said anything or moved. After the SUV glided past, Ellie crossed the street with purpose.
“Shit,” Diana mumbled under her breath, watching Ellie advance. She swept me up in a hug. “I’ve got to dash. I’m so late. Lovely to see you. Call me, okay?” She looked directly at Ellie, turned on her heel, and strode the opposite way down the street.
My first impulse was to leave like Diana, to turn and run. Ellie looked luminous in the sunlight wearing a silk halter, short skirt, and thigh-high suede boots. Every mother with a stroller on the street watched her with a combination of outrage and envy. Reports of her looking haggard were not to be believed. I was trying to remember where I parked, calculating routes to get there as quickly as possible, when she waved, effectively stopping any getaway.
I suppose I stood there frozen—the deer in the headlights, the whole thing. And then she was in front of me, reaching out a hand to pull me close and hug me. She smelled herbal-clean, like quince blossoms and birch bark—her smell that I’d known since childhood. As she let me go the underlying stink of cigarettes and burned coffee swirled out from under her hair. Her arms were freckled, and as she embraced me I had an overwhelming urge to pinch the back of her arm, hard, like I’d seen her do a few times on the playground when we were children, but I didn’t.
I’d not actually seen her since Cinco’s party.
“Hey,” she said. Now that she was closer I could see she was wearing a thick mask of orange makeup that had settled into the lines around her nose and caked on the dark circles under her eyes. Her blouse was rayon and too shiny, her boots scuffed. Wadded money bulged in the pocket of her skirt.
“Hey.” I was trying not to let her catch me doing a panicky scan out of my peripheral vision to see if anyone we knew was there, watching.
“I was just …” Her voice trailed off and she started again. “I’ve started dealing in some vintage clothes. You know, stuff I find around. New stuff too. That woman was psyched with one of Steven’s dresses. He’s getting so much press now. Everyone knows about him.”
I nodded, mute, not knowing what to say. Here she was, Ellie, and she was selling things out of her car. I was angry at her, uncomfortable as hell, but there was a not small part of me that felt sadness.
She went on. “Of course I throw a little of my own stuff in there too.” Of course she did. If anyone could convince people that her old clothes were treasures that they should buy out of a trunk in a parking lot, it was Ellie.
“How’ve you been?” she asked.
Our conversation at Cinco’s came back to me then. I didn’t know what to say to her.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” she said after a silence.
“Oh?”
“I felt bad about Cinco’s party,” she put out tentatively.
If she had done anything else, something that didn’t involve Jim, if she’d kissed someone else’s husband, I would have let her off the hook. That’s how much I loved her, how used I was to overlooking her faults. But I was beginning to think that any friendship I thought I had with her was merely my own hero worship combined with her fear of loneliness. I would have made justifications and excuses, would have tried to make her feel better, but this time she’d hurt me.
“Ellie, I don’t even know what to say to you.”
The color drained out of her face. “Why?”
“You know why,” I said.
We stared at each other.
She laughed, a quick fake sound. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. That night at Jim’s club.”
“This again—the squash player?”
I was mad now. “Not the squash player.”
Her mouth fell open in a little round O and her cheeks flushed as if I’d slapped her.
I didn’t say anything. She would be the next to speak, not me.
“That was nothing,” she said, and seeing the look on my face, she continued. I was relieved she was going to admit it. “Just silliness. We were drunk. I’ve known Jim as long as you have, and he’s always been in love with you. It was an idiotic thing, really.”
I have to admit that her explanation did make me feel better, perhaps only because I so badly wanted to believe it. She was nonchalant about it. And from the way she was talking, she didn’t seem to have any plans on my husband. But I noted that she’d not apologized.
She continued. “I guess it would be upsetting if I were in your shoes. But I think I’ve just become desensitized to stuff like this after hanging around the Vonborkes.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, the rumors are true.” I could see what she was trying to do now, trying to turn this toward a cozy little gossip session. “We were all at their house the other night, and they wanted to play spin the bottle. Like from grade school. Except it must be much more exciting when your spouse is watching you kiss someone. I mean, I wouldn’t know about that.”
I made a face.
“I know. But you can see why the thing with Jim really meant nothing. He’s such a good guy, isn’t he?”
Looking at her then I realized that Ellie left chaos in her wake almost anywhere she went. I wondered if it was reflexive for her, unconscious, or if she meant to do it, if it satisfied something inside her.
“He’s too good,” I said.
“My experience?” she said. “There aren’t a lot of them.”
“So you’ll take mine.”
“There’s no taking. Don’t you know your husband at all?”
I was about to say “I know you” but thought better of it.
Ellie stepped forward as if to hug me, but I busied myself with my shopping bag and she didn’t.
“I feel bad about things,” she said. “I really do.”
“Good to see you,” I said from rote, cutting her off. It had been anything but good to see her.
“Really good to see you,” she said listlessly, realizing I was blocking her out. She gave the back of my arm a significant squeeze.
On my way back to the car I stopped in a boutique and bought a hideously expensive set of clothes for Henry. I walked out of the store laden with bags. I looked at my watch, calculating whether I’d make it back in time to put Henry down for his nap. I sweated as I rushed, packages flopping around me. I saw Ellie drive past me then in her dirty battered car. And walking with my hands full, I had the feeling that the packages and the obligations weren’t the worst things in the world. I felt a glimmer of gratitude.
• 26 •
The Heights
Ellie was shaking so badly when she got in the car that she had to try three times to put the key in the ignition. The kiss with Jim was a dim memory. How in the hell had this become public knowledge? No one knew about it, except Jim and herself, and he’d told—that bastard.
She pulled out of the parking space and lit a cigarette. During the drive back she was thinking that the whole town must know about this. How stupid she’d been to think it would have been an unnoticeable thing. At a Vonborke party kissing someone else’s husband wouldn’t have registered a blip. She wondered how bad this was. She didn’t want to lose one of her oldest, and let’s face it, only friend—over a kiss.
She drove too fast, stubbed out her smoke in the overflowing ashtray, and ate mints out of a tin until her mouth was numb. A more pressing issue bore down on her. What was she going to do about money? That woman with her thousand-dollar handbag had bargained her down to a hundred dollars for Steven’s dress. Viola had called just yesterday offering her a job in the offices of Dress for Success. Ellie had been alarmed at this bit of charity and told her she’d think about it. The position gave Ellie the nice cover of being connected with a nonprofit, as if she were feeding her soul and not flat broke. She had her reservations though about working in a conventional office. She’d never done that before, had no skills for it, and she knew she’d be bored into a coma.
She was already looking forward to the pill she’d take when she got home. She’d sleep the rest of the afternoon, and when she woke up in the early morning at one or two o’clock when the pill wore off she’d take another one and sleep most of tomorrow morning as well.
As she entered the Heights, it all looked so serene. The mature trees, now past bloom, were hung with lush green. They cast a dim greenish light that made her feel like a fish swimming in the bottom of an aquarium or the bottom of a kelp-filtered ocean—perfect for napping.
These streets gave her a feeling of seclusion that calmed her in a way she hadn’t felt since sitting in Selden’s living room.
She knew he was back, knew he hadn’t called her. But after her run-in in Chagrin Falls, she suddenly felt like getting all unpleasant conversations out of the way. Maybe she could wipe the slate clean today, in one day. Start over fresh, her favorite feeling—first days of school, the first days of spring.
She was determined to talk to him face-to-face. He wasn’t going to run away and solve everything over e-mail. She deserved at least one conversation with him.
She felt like she hadn’t talked to anyone in days besides her runin on the sidewalk, and the loneliness of her afternoon plans of a pill and a pillow depressed her. Now that she wasn’t working for Steven, time had become unreliable—dragging until she thought she’d lose her mind and then speeding up so that it seemed to be running out.
Once again she felt the desire that she’d felt quite frequently in recent days, and she turned toward Selden’s house.
Selden’s house. The comfort of it, the interior so hidden away and so much a part of him. She parked in front and opened the glove box, where she’d put the texts between him and Diana after Leforte had returned them. She put the papers in her pocket next to the money. He’d never seen them after all.
She was on
the porch, about to slip the papers under the doormat, when she thought she heard someone inside and then the door flew open.
Selden smiled at her, barefoot in grubby jeans, glasses, and untucked T-shirt.
“Ellie,” he said. “This is a surprise.”
He’d caught her crouching. She straightened, putting the papers in her pocket.
He looked somehow even younger than she remembered. Maybe it was the scruff on his jaw or his glinting glasses. “You’re back,” she said, slightly shocked to see him in person, looking strong, put together, in spite of his usual dishevelment.
He cocked his head to one side. “Yeah, I am. What are you doing here? Come in. Come in.”
“I can’t,” she said, turning away, suddenly wanting to disappear. She shouldn’t have come. She didn’t know what to say.
He furrowed his brow. “But you’re here.”
“I know. I was going to …” But she didn’t finish, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I really am glad you’re here. Come in,” he said again, opening the door wider and trying to wave her in.
Ellie hesitated but then Selden smiled at her, and she thought she’d go in, for just a minute, just to see the interior again. It would seem strange if she left.
It was the same as she’d remembered it. Selden’s books and papers littered every surface. Though not dirty, it was cluttered. He watched her surveying his living room.
Gilded Age Page 22
