American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  When I reemerged, Charlie and Arthur were in the living room, where Arthur was showing Charlie an article about their brother Ed in Washingtonian magazine, a publication with which I was not familiar. “God almighty, is Eddie losing his hair.” Charlie held up the magazine for me to see. “I’m giving him grief about that, for sure. Alice, you want to put your swimsuit on?”

  “It might be more dignified to meet your parents while I’m still wearing clothes.”

  Arthur laughed. “If you’re looking for dignified, you’ve come to the wrong place.” He walked over to a small table between two white bamboo chairs, and he lifted from it a tarnished silver eight-by-ten picture frame. “I refer you to Exhibit A.”

  “Oh, boy.” Charlie grinned. “You trying to get her to dump me here and now?”

  Arthur passed me the frame. On the top, under the clouded silver, a monogram was discernible, the letters PBH, with the bigger B in the middle. The photograph showed a blond woman in a white wedding dress, Arthur in a tuxedo and tails, and fanning out on either side of them, a row of smiling young people; on the bride’s side were six women in matching satin pink dresses, and on Arthur’s side were six men in tails, the closest one to him being Charlie.

  “This is beautiful,” I said. “When did you get married?”

  “Seventy-one, but that’s not the point. Look closer.”

  “All I can say is, you’d better watch your back,” Charlie said. “Not you, Alice.”

  I was still scanning the photograph. Then I saw, and Arthur saw me see, and he said, “Quite a pair on him, huh? But I guess you already knew that.”

  In the photo, in front of the place where Charlie’s zipper would be, hung a ruddy bulge. It was slightly out of context but unmistakable: He had (or at least I hoped it had been him and not someone else) removed his scrotum from inside his pants and displayed it for the photo.

  I glanced at Charlie—really, the Blackwells were exactly like sixth-grade boys at Liess, the ones who’d use a dirty word in earshot of a teacher, waiting for a reaction—and I said mildly, “That’s an unusual pose for a picture.”

  “Took about five years for Jadey to forgive me, but it was worth every minute.” Charlie grinned. “No, she knew it was all in good fun.”

  “My wife is a huge admirer of the black-tie nutsack,” Arthur said. “And I do mean huge.”

  Charlie took my hand and squeezed it. “I promise not to do that at our wedding.” Arthur chortled—having no idea that we really were engaged—and this was when we heard footsteps on the stairs leading up to the porch and then a voice, a refined, middle-aged female voice, calling out, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an interloping girlfriend.”

  “Do I call your mom Priscilla or Mrs. Blackwell?” I whispered.

  Charlie was walking out to the porch with me behind him, and he said, “Hey, Maj, Alice wants to know if she should call you Priscilla or Mrs. Blackwell.”

  “Charlie,” I hissed.

  His mother laughed. “It depends,” she said. “We’ll have to see how much I like Alice.”

  She had chin-length white hair that was slicked back, its wetness holding it in place in the way it does for only a few minutes after you emerge from water. She wore a navy blue tank swimsuit and a watch and nothing else, not even shoes or a towel. She was nearly six feet, and her legs and chest and shoulders were all both wrinkly and tan; her body was slim and athletic. (“I was field-hockey captain at Dana Hall as well as Holyoke,” she mentioned later in the weekend, and I murmured my approval not because I actually was impressed but because I could tell I should be.)

  She had not yet glanced in my direction, and she reached out and set her fingers under Charlie’s chin—I observed the strange fact of Charlie and his mother not embracing—and after her eyes had roamed over his face, she said in a warm tone, “That haircut makes you look like a Jew.”

  Without hesitation—sincerely, it seemed—Charlie laughed. “Hey, at least I still have hair, which is more than I can say for your oldest son.”

  But she had already moved on; with no embarrassment or apology, she was looking me up and down. “Aren’t you a little dish.”

  I stepped forward and extended the terra-cotta planter with the basil in it. “Thank you very much for having me.”

  “Alice brought you some homegrown marijuana,” Charlie said. “Madison’s finest.”

  “It’s basil,” I said quickly.

  Mrs. Blackwell turned to Charlie. “I’ll bet you wish it were marijuana,” she said, and there was a note of pride in her voice that thickened as she added, addressing me, “My sons are incorrigibly naughty, except for Eddie, who’s straight as a ruler. Charlie tells me you’re from Riley, so you must know the Zurbrugg family.”

  I nodded. “I went all through school with Fred.” The Zurbruggs were the richest people in Riley, maybe the only rich people—they owned one of the largest dairy farms in the state, and of course it had been Fred’s party that I was driving to the night of my accident.

  Mrs. Blackwell said, “Ada Zurbrugg’s gladiola are the envy of our Garden Club in Milwaukee. We don’t know what her trick is. But such a shame about Geraldine, isn’t it? She was the most darling child.”

  “Did something—?” I hesitated. Geraldine was Fred’s older sister, and if a great misfortune had befallen her, I wasn’t aware of it.

  “Well, she’s fat as a house!” Mrs. Blackwell exclaimed. “She must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds! It’s absolutely tragic.”

  “I haven’t seen her for a few years.”

  “If ever the bikini should be made illegal . . . ” Mrs. Blackwell laughed merrily. “Alice, I’m putting you in Itty-Bitty. Chas, help her settle in, and do explain about the lav.” She turned back to me. “Halcyon can be a bit rustic, but I’m sure you don’t mind roughing it. Are you a singles or a doubles girl?”

  It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was referring to. “Oh, I don’t play tennis.” I smiled ruefully. “Charlie told me about the tournament, though, and it sounds like a fun tradition.”

  “If you don’t play tennis, what on earth do you do?” She was feigning confusion when I’m sure she wasn’t confused at all. Shrewdness emanated from her.

  “Well—” I paused. Was her question rhetorical or literal? No one spoke, and I said, “I enjoy reading.” For the first time in this exchange, I did not strain to seem positive and sincere; I simply spoke, because I could see already that Priscilla Blackwell was a person who would hate you for trying to convince her you were good enough. She might hate you for not trying, too, but probably less so.

  Charlie set one hand on my back. “Alice is a genius,” he said. “She’s read every book there is.” If the statement was absurd, it was also sweet. He added, “I hear Ginger has a migraine?”

  Mrs. Blackwell snorted. “Ginger is a patsy.” She looked at her watch. “Drinks will be at six sharp, and we’ll leave for the clubhouse at seven-twenty.” She was looking at me again when she added, “You’ll want to change for dinner.”

  ITTY-BITTY CONTAINED two sets of bunk beds, a mini-refrigerator (Charlie helped himself to another beer from it as soon as we walked inside), and a closet in which nothing hung except bare wire hangers; there was, of course, no bathroom. Of the four mattresses, only one was made up: tightly pulled white sheets, a single pillow in a white pillowcase, a maroon wool blanket folded at the foot of the bed.

  Charlie sat on the blanket, hunched forward so he didn’t hit his head on the top bunk, as I hung my clothes. “This is ideal,” he said. “I was worried she’d put you in with some squawking niece or nephew, but you’ve got privacy so you can read, sleep in . . . ” He grinned. “Entertain midnight visitors.”

  “Don’t count on it.” I slid a blouse onto a hanger. “I don’t want to risk getting caught by your mom. You’ve brought other girlfriends to Halcyon, haven’t you?”

  “Is that code for how many girls have I slept with? You can ask me that.”

  “It
wasn’t code, but now that you mention it—”

  “Eleven,” he said. “Before you, I mean. You’re twelve. What about you—how many dudes?”

  “Counting you, four.” I set my white pumps on the closet floor.

  “Really, four?” Charlie seemed surprised.

  “What did you think?”

  “The brother of the fellow in high school, and me, and—”

  “I dated Wade Trommler during college, and a few years ago a guy named Simon.”

  “You made the beast with two backs with Trombone Trommler? You were boned by the Trombone?” Charlie seemed not at all jealous but greatly amused. “That’s priceless. Oh, man, Wade has to be, hands down, the dullest man on the planet. Don’t get me wrong, he’s as nice as they come, but duller than dishwater. How was he?”

  “Why do you want to talk about this?” During a recent badminton game at the Hickens’, Wade and Charlie had been on the same team, but I no longer thought of Wade as my ex-boyfriend; I simply thought of him as Rose’s husband.

  “Does that mean he was bad or good?” Charlie asked.

  “He was fine,” I said. “You’re right that he’s nice, and you’re right that he’s dull.”

  “He was no Charlie Blackwell?”

  I walked to Charlie and wrapped my arms around him. He was still sitting, and he nuzzled his face against my chest. “There’s only one Charlie Blackwell,” I said, and I couldn’t help adding, “Thank goodness.”

  “And this other fellow, Simon who?”

  “His last name is Törnkvist. I’m sure you don’t know him. He was kind of a hippie and a very serious person.”

  “What about in the sack?”

  “Charlie, come on.”

  “I’m trying to get a sense of the full Lindy. To move into the future together, we must also honor our past.”

  I gently tilted his head back so we were looking at each other. “Is that from a speech?”

  He smirked. “Maybe.”

  “I think Simon was haunted by having been in Vietnam,” I said.

  “Aha.” Charlie nodded. “The embittered kind of hippie. Wise of you to move on.”

  “Don’t make light of him,” I said. “He’s a decent person. You didn’t—” I had a hunch about the answer to this question, but I wasn’t certain. “You didn’t go to Vietnam, did you?”

  “Couldn’t. Flat feet.” Charlie was barefoot, already wearing his swim trunks, and he extended his legs and flexed his feet.

  “Did your brothers go?”

  “First Ed was in law school, then he’d married Ginger, so he got draft deferments, and it turns out John and Arthur are flat-footed, too. What are the chances, huh?” Charlie grinned. Making air quotes, he said, “Those were my years in the ‘hospitality industry’—aka I was a ski bum. I was an instructor in Squaw Valley, and I grew a mountain-man beard, which I’ll ask Maj if she has any pictures of, because you have to see it to believe it.”

  It was strange to have been reminded of Simon while standing in this guest cottage on the Blackwell vacation compound, strange to think how different this place was, surely, from the pea farm where Simon’s family lived. He would, I imagined, find the Blackwells indulgent and vulgar and self-satisfied, and they in turn would find him dour and humorless—not that they would ever cross paths. So what did it mean that I could dwell in either camp without much difficulty? Was I was mutable, without a fixed identity? I could see the arguments for every side, for and against people like the Blackwells, for and against a person like Simon. Yet it was hard to imagine Charlie’s behavior, unlike my own, changing depending on whom he dated; he would always be Charlie. He had told me I had a strong sense of myself, but I wondered then if the opposite was true—if what he took for strength was really a bending sort of accommodation to his ways, if what he saw when he looked at me was the reflection of his own will and personality. I was polite, adequately educated, and adequately pretty, and if I wanted to marry him, it meant he was a worthy person to marry. But no—this line of thought served little purpose. Lots of women would have married Charlie. How pompous to imagine my affirmation determined his standing in some sort of sweeping or official way, how truly laughable to a person like Priscilla Blackwell, who saw me, no doubt, as a humble teacher from a small town. I was a humble teacher from a small town. (And then, beneath this conclusion, which was the one I pretended to myself that I had drawn, there lay the conclusion that I actually drew: that I was right after all. While plenty of women indeed would have married Charlie, these were women like Dena, not women like me. I wasn’t marrying him for his money or social standing. I was marrying him because I enjoyed his company. And I was, from his point of view, a serious person—he saw me the way I had seen Simon—and it was my seriousness that fundamentally affirmed Charlie, explaining away his playfulness as a superficial distraction, alluding to hidden reservoirs of wisdom and stability. If Charlie Blackwell was really a spoiled lightweight, Alice Lindgren would not have been marrying him; we both needed to believe it. But again, as I said: This is the conclusion I pretended not to have drawn.)

  Charlie patted my backside. “Hurry up and put your suit on,” he said. “I want to get in a swim before dinner.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, as I climbed the steps leading to the screened-in porch of the Alamo at a minute to six, I saw that the porch was empty. Naturally, I wondered if I’d gotten the time or place wrong that we were to have drinks, and my apprehension increased when I looked over my shoulder and saw Charlie’s brother John walking up the grassy incline from the lake, wearing plaid swim trunks and holding the hand of Margaret, his seven-year-old daughter. As he approached, he made a wincing smile. “We’ll do a very quick turnaround,” he said to me. “Lightning speed, right, Margaret? Alice, you look lovely.” A thread-bare towel hung around John’s neck, and in his right hand he carried a rubber inner tube. Both he and Margaret had burnt noses and shoulders.

  I’d met John and several other Blackwells on the dock that afternoon. Everyone was friendly—the children were busy splashing and playing—and I had trouble remembering who was who except for Harold Blackwell, who, when Charlie and I arrived, was climbing a wooden ladder out of the water. He looked like an older version of the governor I had paid only passing attention to in the newspaper and on television when I was in high school and college, except that instead of wearing a business suit, he wore swim trunks, his gray chest hair clung wetly to his skin, and his nipples were mauve coins; to see the nipples of the former governor was an unsettling experience on which I did my best not to dwell. (I had the thought that Dena would appreciate the awkwardness of this encounter, then I felt a twinge of regret that I wouldn’t be able to describe it to her, then I was distracted by meeting the many other Blackwells.) When Charlie introduced us, Harold Blackwell placed both his hands over both of mine. “I can’t tell you how delighted we are to have you here,” he said, and he didn’t seem the way I remembered him from television, which was distant and self-assured and generically middle-aged and generically male. Had time changed him? He possessed an air of kindness that was both sorrowful and authentic—a sad person whose sadness had, of all possible outcomes, made him nice.

  I had just opened the screen door onto the porch of the Alamo when a thin, middle-aged black woman in a black dress and a white apron appeared from inside the house, carrying a tray of crab dip and crackers that she set on a large round table. Already there, sitting on the white tablecloth, were bottles of wine, whiskey, brandy, sweet vermouth, and bitters, as well as a silver ice bucket, a lemon, a dish of maraschino cherries, green cocktail napkins, and many glasses—wineglasses and highballs and old-fashioneds—off which the evening sun reflected enchantingly. A plastic cooler filled with ice and cans of Pabst and Schlitz waited adjacent to the table with the lid removed.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m Alice Lindgren. I’m Charlie’s—I’m a guest of Charlie.”

  The woman nodded in a not particularly warm way. “What do you want to drink?”<
br />
  “Am I early?” I asked. “May I help you set up?” On the wicker tables between chairs, I noticed little bowls of peanuts and, separately, Cheetos; also, on closer inspection, I saw that the cocktail napkins featured a yellow ball midbounce and said in white letters TENNIS PLAYERS HAVE NO FAULTS!

  The woman said, “You want some white wine, is that what you want?”

  “That would be wonderful.” When I saw that she was opening a bottle, I wished I’d declined, but it seemed to be too late. She passed the glass to me, and I had just taken a sip when a male voice cried out, “Miss Ruby!” There was a whir in my peripheral vision, a quick-moving human figure, and the woman in the apron was swept off her feet. The figure, it turned out, was Charlie; he had lifted her into a spinning embrace, and as he set her down, the woman glared at him, smoothing her apron, and said, “You don’t have an ounce of sense.”

  Charlie grinned. “Miss Ruby, meet my bride-to-be, Alice Lindgren. Alice, this is my first love, Miss Ruby.”

  I might have been annoyed by Charlie’s disclosure about our engagement—it seemed a violation of our agreement in the car—except that as Miss Ruby and I shook hands, she seemed no more interested in me than she had before Charlie’s arrival. Had Charlie introduced other young women to her as his bride-to-be? It was not impossible. “Don’t you touch that crab dip, Charlie Blackwell,” she snapped, and I saw that he’d dipped his index finger into the crystal bowl beside the wine bottles. Miss Ruby exhaled through her nostrils. “You can’t use a knife like a civilized person?”

  “It tastes better like this.” Charlie licked his finger. “Alice, want a drink?”

  I held up my wine.

  “Excellent,” he said. “And you look ravishing, of course.” He leaned in to kiss my lips; clearly, he was in a performative mode. I had seen this a few times in Madison when we were in groups. Sometimes he was charmingly silly but still capable of listening to what you said, and sometimes, particularly when he’d been drinking for several hours, he was wound up into a frenzy of goofiness, deaf to the remarks of anyone who wasn’t similarly drunk and wound up. I’d simply ridden out these episodes, waiting until we could go home for the night, sometimes exchanging sympathetic looks with the wives or girlfriends of other men. I didn’t want to encourage Charlie, but I also had no desire to tell him how to behave.