Switcheroo

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Marla managed to finish all the shopping leave the store, exhausted but with no major injuries. She hadn’t had any idea that shopping could be such an aggressive sport. There were so many bags that she filled up the huge cart and the shelf under it. The parking lot was a nightmare of angry women and beeping horns. Then, when she got to the car, she realized how small it was. She managed to pack the trunk and stuff the rest of the groceries in the tiny backseat. She stepped back and felt proud of herself for her accomplishment. As she turned back to the cart to put it in the storage area, she remembered the huge turkey on the bottom. She’d almost forgotten the main course! And after what she’d gone through to get it!

  She had trouble lifting it, and once she’d hefted it up she realized she had no place to put it, at least not in the trunk or the tiny backseat area. So, with difficulty, Marla pushed the turkey into the front passenger seat. It barely fit because she had already moved the seat up to make room for the bags in the back. She strategically angled the frozen, slipping turkey, then put her foot on the corner of the passenger seat, pushing down the upholstery. There was just enough space for the turkey to pop into place but she was afraid it might pop out if she stopped the car short. God! Her turkey through the windshield! So lovingly, she fastened the seat belt around it. “Good boy,” she cooed, and patted the frozen carcass.

  Marla had been very, very lucky. When she’d gotten back to the house and begun unloading, a woman who called herself Rose offered to help. After her shopping experience, she didn’t think she had the strength to pretend to be Sylvie in front of anyone, but this woman seemed nice, so it couldn’t be a relative or the nutty witch Sylvie had described as her sister-in-law. Rose seemed like a nice woman and had offered to help her carry the endless groceries into the house. Now everything was in the kitchen—except for the huge unmovable frozen turkey, still strapped in the passenger seat of the car. There were huge bottles, bags, and cans everywhere. Marla and Rose had to roll in the huge jar of olives. The stuff overwhelmed even the enormous kitchen, not to mention Marla herself. “Really, really, thank you for helping. I couldn’t have gotten all this in here without you.”

  “Neighbors have to help each other.” Rose paused for a moment and peered more closely at Marla in the kitchen light. “You look great. That spa visit really paid off. Where was that place?”

  Marla knew the spa wasn’t going to help Rose, so she pretended not to hear and lifted the gigantic bag of marshmallows, putting one part on her shoulder. But the other half of the bag swung up, hit her in the face, and lodged on her other shoulder. Rose helped pull the bag down. “Thanks on both accounts,” Marla said. “Boy, they should have warning labels on this. It could suffocate you. It would have been really, really embarrassing to die in a topping for sweet potatoes.” Marla reached for the bottle of olives. Where would she put them? “This is even harder than I thought it would be.” Marla remembered then that she was supposed to be experienced in all this. “I mean, I’ve done it a million times, but each year it gets harder,” she said to Rose.

  Rose pulled over a stool and sat down, clearly tired. “Each year you get older. Not that you look it. And no one ever appreciates it.”

  “No. But the whole family is grateful for the wonderful job you’ve done…right?”

  “Oh yeah. The applause is deafening,” Rose said sarcastically.

  “Then it’s all worth it,” Marla said cheerfully, not getting the sarcasm.

  Rose meanwhile stared at Marla. “Boy, you really are different. Was it the spa, or did you hit your head when you went into the pool?”

  “I never swam at the spa,” Marla said, folding the paper grocery bags.

  “Well, something’s different,” Rose said.

  “I guess I have the holiday spirit.” Marla smiled as she headed back out the screen door. She’d always figured she must be nicer than Bobby’s wife. “Can you give me a hand with the bird?”

  “Sure,” Rose answered as she followed her out.

  When Marla opened the car door, Rose gasped. “Is that a turkey or an ostrich?” she asked, then cackled. “Ah, gee, is it enough? How many platoons are coming to your dinner, anyway? While I eat alone.”

  “So far just the usual family.” God. Marla felt sorry for a woman alone out here in the boonies. What had happened to this poor thing’s family? Maybe some younger woman had stolen her husband. Guilt swept over her. She had been the cause of at least one…marital problem. “Say, hey, you want to come too?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Rose asked. “No, you’re not, are you? Will everyone be there? I’ll be there with bells on. But, in the meantime, how are we going to get this ostrich in the house? You’ll need another crane.”

  “It’s not a crane or an ostrich,” Marla said, annoyed. “It’s a turkey. The best, biggest one the store had, and I got it.” She looked around and noticed a red Radio Flyer wagon in the garage. She brought it to the car, and Rose helped her align it against the open door.

  “Remember when Billy pushed Kenny down the hill in this?” Rose asked.

  “Not really,” Marla answered, distracted and trying to slide the turkey carefully into the wagon.

  “At the time, you acted like the world was ending. You would think that the scar above his eye would be a constant reminder.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind,” Marla chimed back.

  “Does it bother you, not having the kids home?” Rose asked in a sad tone of voice. By now they had the turkey in the Flyer and Marla was trying to pull the wagon up the walk.

  “Sure it does. And with Bob gone so much I’m starting to feel like I’m single.”

  “At least you don’t feel divorced. That’s hell,” Rose said.

  The old man—Lou was his name—sat hunched over the piano. He was playing some corny old song, and Marla could tell he was not playing it well. She wondered why he was stooped over that way—he wasn’t that old—but his posture and his attitude aged him. She came up behind him and put both hands on his shoulders, gently pulling him back and leaning into him so that his spine was straight. Lou’s hands slowed, then trembled, and at last he stopped playing.

  “To play well, you have to sit well,” said Marla, mustering up her professional voice. “Do you think Beethoven slumped?”

  “I think he did,” Lou answered. “At least in all those pictures he looks humped over.”

  “My god, Lou. These muscles are so tense!” Gently Marla pushed her thumb into the space between the tendons on Lou’s shoulder.

  “Tense? Yeah. I’m worried I might live another day.”

  “Lou! What a terrible thing to say,” Marla said, sincere and shocked. She dug her fingers deeper into Lou’s shoulder. How could she help him, she wondered. “Lou,” she said with new determination, “take off your shoes.”

  “What?” he asked. “Is my pedal foot too heavy?”

  “No. No,” she reassured him, “I think this attitude of yours needs an adjustment, a confrontation. And it begins with your feet.”

  “Believe me, Mrs. Schiffer, no one wants to confront my feet. Trust me on this.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Marla said as she knelt and began to untie his lace-up shoe. Suddenly a smile, as wide and bright as a rainbow, spread across Lou’s face. “What is it?” Marla asked.

  Lou looked away, as if he was embarrassed. A hole in his sock? No. Marla looked back down and pulled the sock off his foot. She looked up again at Lou’s gleeful but abashed face. Then her eyes moved back down, but this time stopped at his lap. There, under his old man’s trousers, was a very visible boner. Marla smiled up sweetly at Lou. “You see?” she asked. “Reflexology cures everything.”

  23

  Sylvie lay with her eyes closed, not quite asleep, not quite awake, but in that gray zone of nodding contentment. Along her right side she could feel Bob’s warm body pressed against hers. His arm under her neck and around her shoulder gave her a feeling of such peace and contentment that she was tempted to slip bac
k into the twilight of satiation she’d been in, while at the same time she wanted to wake so that she could consciously savor this moment. The draw of the coma of pleasurable afterglow was difficult to ignore. Sylvie sighed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this good.

  After luxuriating for a few more moments, she made the supreme effort and opened her eyes. Bob’s profile was beside her on the pillow, and though most of the candles had burned out there was still enough light to see him. He really was a beautiful man, she thought, even after all these years. His head, pushed back on the cushions slightly, was noble and—from this angle, with his neck stretched back—his jawline looked as firm as it had twenty years ago. His lashes, so very dark, threw a shadow onto his cheekbone and the slight flush and sheen of sweat on his face gave him, at least temporarily, the dewy skin of youth.

  Sylvie wanted to kiss him—on his cheekbones, on his eyelids, and on his full, slightly open mouth—but she was afraid to move, afraid to wake him and break the spell. Because, right now, at this very moment, Sylvie was perfectly happy: no matter what, she loved this man beside her and now she knew that he loved her with a passion perhaps even deeper than her own. She’d finally succeeded. She was having an affair with her own husband, and it had all the edgy appeal of the forbidden. But—for her—there was also the depth that their combined history and her knowledge of him added.

  As if he felt her gaze on him, Bob’s own lids fluttered. Catlike, he opened his eyes slowly, turned his head on the pillow, and looked at her. For a moment they said nothing, but the look said it all. Then he gathered her closer to his side. Sylvie felt safe, protected in the circle of his arm.

  “I’m glad you called me. I’m very glad I came over,” Bob whispered. They stared again at one another. She could feel him searching for words. For a moment she was tempted to put her hand over his lips. Words could only spoil this perfection, but before she could gesture he had already continued. “That was…wow…” He blinked. Were there tears on his lower eyelids? Sylvie knew Bob’s pauses were as important as the words he spoke. “…powerful,” he finished.

  She was flooded with pleasure. She had not been wrong. The magic was not in her imagination. “For me too,” Sylvie whispered back, but didn’t move. She wanted him to touch her again. She needed him to make the first move.

  Bob, as if sensing this, reached over and stroked her hair. He did it gently, almost worshipfully. Then his face changed: he looked confused. “Something’s different. Really different,” he said. “You’ve changed.” For a moment Sylvie became frightened. Maybe now, at last, he’d realized the trick she’d pulled on him. Maybe she’d been caught. And maybe that was good, maybe that was what she wanted.

  Bob looked at her, really looked at her. Sylvie didn’t shrink away. She could see the confusion in his eyes, but met it calmly. Bob tried to speak again. “Tonight our lovemaking was…it was deeper than ever before…” He stopped. Then, instead of using his lips to speak, he kissed her. It was a movie kiss, a Warren Beatty—Natalie Wood—Splendor-in-the-Grass kiss. “I think going home to visit your Grannie was good for you. It grounded you, or something. Meanwhile I can’t seem to let you go,” he said.

  “So then I guess you’ll have to keep me,” Sylvie said. She shivered and Bob reached for the sheet to cover her. For a moment Sylvie—always the good homemaker—wished for the pure cotton damask from her own bed instead of this scratchy, wildly patterned permanent-press fabric. Her skin—well, all of her—felt so tender now. But bed covers, things, were no longer important. They could be lying on animal skins in a cave, or on hay in a barn loft. She felt Bob inhale and then release a giant sigh. She stiffened. She knew, as if by osmosis through his skin into hers, that he had just thought of going home.

  Then, for the first time since they’d begun making love, she remembered that she wasn’t Sylvie. Bob hadn’t made love to her. She was Marla right now. Bob loved Marla while poor Sylvie was being betrayed. After what had just gone on between them, she knew now that she wanted Bob, and wanted him desperately. But who did Bob want? The woman he had just made love to, or his mistress at home in his wife’s bed?

  As if in answer to her question Bob lifted himself on his uninjured elbow and looked at her. “Marla, I want to keep you. Forever. To tell you the truth, I was going to break up with you before you went away.”

  “You were? Really?” Sylvie said, her voice cheerful. Then she realized both the past tense he’d used and that she—Marla—should be sad.

  “Yes,” Bob said. “It’s not that things had changed with my wife, it just seemed—”

  “What do you mean, ‘things had changed with your wife’?” Sylvie asked.

  Bob rolled onto the other elbow, then winced in pain. “It’s not about my wife,” he said. “It’s that your…uniqueness grows on me,” he said.

  “Really, really?” she asked, almost a parody of Marla. She couldn’t control herself. “Promise me I’m not like anyone else you’ve ever known.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s an easy promise,” Bob said, laughing. Then his face grew serious, his voice husky. “You’re not like anyone else,” he whispered, his mouth against her ear. “And tonight your uniqueness took a giant leap forward.”

  “One step for a man, a giant leap for womankind,” Sylvie said, sitting up abruptly. The man had no idea she was his own wife’s twin. God! He was so blind, so stupid…and so adorable. Remembering that she was Marla had made her decide that it was time to torture Bob.

  “Wasn’t it new and special tonight?” Bob asked.

  “Sex with you always feels good to me,” she purred. “You are a really, really good lover. One of my best.”

  For a moment Bob’s face froze, his mouth trapped in an unattractive gape. He turned on his back, sank back down onto his pillow, stared at the ceiling, and didn’t say anything. Maybe she’d gone too far, Sylvie worried. She lay down again too, quiet for a moment, and, when he hadn’t spoken or moved for a little while, she rolled onto his chest and pinioned his wrists against the mattress. “What was different?” she asked. “There were less acrobatics than usual, right?”

  “Huh?” Bob came back from wherever he had gone away to. “Less acrobatics?” he repeated.

  Guiltily, Sylvie said, “I’m sorry. I was tired.”

  Bob shook his head. “No apologies. It was perfect. You’re perfect.” He paused, and the spark had returned. “I loved it. I love you,” he told her and then kissed her.

  “You love me?” Sylvie repeated.

  She could hear Bob calibrate the importance of what he’d just said. She waited to see if he’d back off. “Sure,” he told her, but “sure” was surely too casual a word.

  “What kind of love?” Sylvie asked. “The love a man has for a woman?”

  “Yes. That one,” Bob said lightly. He looked at Sylvie and pulled her down to him. “You’re trembling.”

  How could he betray me like this? Sylvie thought. How could he tell Marla he loved her? “I’m cold.”

  Tenderly he tucked a blanket around her. They lay silently for a while, until it became clear to Bob—the lunkhead—that her coldness was not only physical. Then Bob’s wristwatch alarm went off, breaking the silence. “I’m afraid time’s up. I better get going,” Bob said.

  He had set his alarm? Sylvie couldn’t believe it. He’d set a limit on their intimacy, their pleasure. Oh, it was he who was cold. When had he done it? “Oh, no…not yet,” Sylvie pleaded. “Please…”

  Bob took her by the shoulders. “Stop,” he said. “You promised we weren’t going to fight anymore about me going home.” He kissed her on the cheek. “This isn’t easy for me.” His voice sounded husky, and so sincere. Was he lying to her? Should she tell him he didn’t have to go—not to please his wife, anyway.

  “Please stay, Bobby,” she whispered. “Just a little longer.” She paused. “That wasn’t fighting. It was begging.”

  “It’s hard enough for me, Marla…” He paused.

 
“But how can you just go? Especially after what we just had together? Besides, the candles haven’t completely burned out. And you said it was deeper.” She paused. “Deeper than with your wife?”

  “No more questions,” Bob told her, putting his legs over the side of the bed. Sylvie could tell he was trying not to sound annoyed. “I don’t have answers for any of them.”

  Bob struggled into his trousers and began tying his shoes. Sylvie, hurt and more confused than ever, turned her back on him and pulled the sheet up all the way over her head. It was a childish gesture, but she felt like a child.

  “Who cares about her anyway?” Sylvie said childishly.

  “I do.”

  Sylvie rolled over, pulled down the sheet, and turned back to Bob, now hopeful. “You do?”

  “She’s the mother of my children,” Bob said flatly.

  “Is that it?” Sylvie spat out. She couldn’t believe he’d said that. What was she as a wife, some sort of brood mare? Wasn’t she a woman to him at all? “Maybe that’s not all she is. Maybe she’d be more if you did the things you used to do with her. Things like what we did tonight.” She realized, then, what she was doing and cut herself off.

  “What did you say?” Bob looked at her, his face even more contorted with confusion than her own.

  Sylvie pulled the covers up higher. “Nothing,” she said and forced out a Marla giggle. “Bobby, you know we never know what I’m talking about.” Sylvie got up on her knees and put her arms around Bob’s waist. “I know I’m under your skin. And once I had chiggers, so I know how that feels! You’ll always come running back to me.”

  24

  Bob was just getting home from Marla’s apartment. He looked at his watch by the light of the oven door. It was almost one o’clock. He shouldn’t have stayed so long again. He started climbing up the stairs. Sylvie must be asleep by now. But before he’d gotten past the third (always creaky) step, Sylvie’s voice stopped him. “Hey, mister. Where are you going? I made dinner for you.”