Hearts

by Hilma Wolitzer

  Linda went past him in the narrow doorway, managing not to make contact. It will go away, she promised herself. Eventually it will go away.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I want to know,” Wolfie said. “I care about you.”

  She kept moving and didn’t answer him.

  “And Robin?” he said, following her. “Are you going to keep her, too?”

  “No, I’ll take her to her mother, the way we planned.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “I can’t help this right now, babe. It’s this particular time.”

  He walked outside with them to the car. “You can reach me here, through Vincent and Elena,” he said. “I’ll be in touch with them. I really want to know about you. Linda?”

  Linda had turned on the ignition. The windows of the Maverick were open, and they were sitting there, inhaling the exhaust.

  Wolfie leaned in, the way he had that first time at the gas station in Ohio. His hand grazed her face. “Hey, Robin,” he said. “Don’t get married or anything. Wait for me, okay?”

  What was making him stay like this? Guilt? Confusion? Relief? They would all be asphyxiated. Robin didn’t give him any encouragement. She had reverted to her former self, and was crouched in the backseat like a stowaway.

  “Goodbye,” Linda said. She released the emergency brake and put the car into drive.

  “Goodbye,” Wolfie agreed finally, and withdrew his head. He said other things she couldn’t hear over the motor’s thunder. He waved, shouted, ran after the car for a few yards, and then disappeared.

  31 Miriam Reismann Hausner placed the last rose in the arrangement she was fixing in the large crystal bowl on the piano. “Oh!” she said. “You startled me. I didn’t hear the door chime. Did Parker let you in? Are you here about the maid’s job?”

  The blond young girl in the doorway did not answer. Miriam, whose eyesight had grown worse this year, put on her glasses and stepped closer. The girl came into focus, and Miriam could see they looked exactly alike, except for the color of their hair. And except for their clothing, of course. The girl was poorly dressed, in denim shorts with a raveled edge, and a T-shirt with permanent chocolate stains on the front.

  She, Miriam, was wearing a pure-silk hostess gown and suitable jewelry. She put one perfectly manicured hand against her breast and murmured, “It’s you, isn’t it?” She could hardly see because of the tears that were gathering in her eyes and fogging up her eyeglasses. “Why, you’re beautiful!” she exclaimed.

  Miriam Taylor-Harding (her pen name) put the final page of her new novel into the typewriter. It had the same kind of plot she always used. This time, the mother and daughter are separated during the war, each one going on with her own life, each one believing the other has been killed by the enemy. Sometimes they are separated by a mistake in the hospital where the girl is born. Sometimes there is a kidnapping. In TV interviews Ms. Taylor-Harding admits that she cries while she writes.

  She began to type. She heard the French doors open behind her, and she felt a little chill on the back of her neck, but she didn’t turn around. This was always the most difficult scene to get down on paper—the reunion. She was so incredibly moved. And yet her fingers flew, as if the story had come to life by itself. She sobbed as she typed The End, and she shut off the electric typewriter.

  “Nicky, darling,” she said. “Pour me a Manhattan, will you? I’m emotionally drained.” And then she turned around.

  The distinguished, but ailing, man closed the trunk of the white Mercedes 450SL.

  The once beautiful, dark-haired woman said, “That’s it, I guess. Well, goodbye Arizona, hello New Jersey!”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Mimi?” he asked. “Giving up all this, to go back to that life?” His rings flashed in the sunlight as he waved his hand at the huge mansion behind them, at the gardens and the pool and the tennis courts.

  She laughed bitterly. “Oh, yes, I know what I’m doing, all right,” she said. “I only hope to God it’s not too late.”

  They climbed into the Mercedes, put on the air conditioner and the tape deck. The motor roared as they pulled away from the curb. Neither of them looked back. Neither of them saw the other, small green car pulling up to the curb near the mansion, and the lovely blond girl opening the door and stepping out.

  A man came to the door. He said, “You don’t have to tell me who you are. The resemblance is uncanny.”

  The girl stepped into the drawing room. She kept one hand in her pocket.

  The man said, “Was the trip difficult? Have you had lunch? You’ll want to freshen up before you go in. You’ll want to prepare yourself. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  The girl shook her head and he noticed how lovely her hair was when it moved like that, sort of in ripples. It looked freshly shampooed.

  He led the way up the spiral staircase. “I must warn you,” he said, “she does not recognize anyone anymore. And even the latest wonder drugs cannot calm her.”

  Their footsteps were silent in the carpeted corridor. As he opened the heavily carved doors leading to the bedroom, the girl could hear the clinking of chains—and then the horrifying cackle …

  Linda sneezed and Robin was jerked from her reverie. She had forgotten that Linda was there, that both of them were in the car again, being borne away from the last place. That happened occasionally, allowing Robin to feel cozily alone, free to daydream or remember things. For most of their trip, Linda hadn’t let her be for more than a minute at a time. She was always butting in, always asking questions, her voice as carefully polite as a guidance counselor’s. It was hard to even think.

  But since they’d left Albuquerque, and Wolfie, Linda had become quiet, even withdrawn. Robin knew it was unhappiness that was keeping her to herself. It wasn’t a difficult deduction to make. Wolfie had run after them like one of those mad dogs that chase cars. He yelled at Linda to wait, that he cared, that he wanted something or wanted to tell her something. It was impossible to hear him over the noise of the car. She had sped away like she did after that time they stayed in Buddy’s Siesta. When she was really upset, Linda became a driving fiend, a maniac who made everyone else on the road get out of her way.

  She and Wolfie were in love. That wasn’t difficult to figure out, either. All that dumb, love-struck whispering and touching that had gone on in the car and back at Elena’s, and before that at the motels. Robin guessed that this was only a lovers’ quarrel, a necessary ritual in love affairs, and a passing thing. Any minute now, Linda would come to a skidding stop in her daredevil driving, and turn the car around and head back toward Albuquerque at the same breakneck speed. Or she would keep driving like this, blindly forward, while Wolfie took a faster car or a helicopter to get ahead of them, and would show up all out of breath, but playing it cool, after the next curve in the road. Then Linda would let him in again and that whole craziness between them would start once more. All the time and energy they wasted in fighting and making up; Robin would never understand it.

  For a couple of hours after their getaway, she looked out the window, waiting for the reunion, and when it didn’t happen, and when Linda’s driving reduced to its old normal creepy speed, Robin gave up her first theory and wondered if Linda and Wolfie were simply star-crossed lovers like Tony and Maria in West Side Story. Though she couldn’t see what was stopping them. And why did she care anyway? Why did their separation interest her so much and sadden her? She was never going to see either of them again, anyway. And she had her own future to think about. But her concern for them stayed, a peculiar ache that resisted the comfort of reason. They were like characters she had been cheering on in a movie, for whom she wanted a satisfying ending, and they were also heroes in her real life. Even while she made private fun of them, she had enjoyed the protective atmosphere of their loving, and felt betrayed and lonely in its absence, the way she’d felt after her father’s death. It was the scariest thing to consider, that you might always have to depend on other people for
your happiness. It meant you had no control at all, and who else in the world could be trusted?

  Robin decided not to think about that, or about them, if she could help it. Grateful for Linda’s simultaneous retreat, she leaned back against the seat cushions and dozed and woke, dreaming and planning.

  Later in the day, Linda pulled off the highway at some exit, without a word to Robin, who said, “Where are we going now?” She hoped Linda didn’t have some more asshole friends from high school to visit, and that they were only going to stop for lunch. Linda didn’t say.

  It was a little hick town, and they drove slowly up the narrow main street in the broiling sun, past old ladies in white shoes and straw hats, past Indian men clustered in the shade of doorways and awnings, past shimmering parked cars that appeared to be dissolving in the heat.

  Linda parked near a storefront movie in the center of town. She got out of the car and went to the cashier’s window without even glancing up at the marquee to see what was playing, or back at Robin, who followed her without being told to. When Linda was in one of her schizo moods, it was no use asking her why they were doing anything, why they were going to the movies now, in this particular place. Robin knew she’d never get a straight answer. She walked quickly behind her, catching a glimpse of the advertised program—two thrillers—and the blue plastic icicles over the door that promised air-conditioned comfort inside.

  It was cool, a little cold even, and neither of them had taken sweaters from the car. Robin was wearing a tiny stretch of puckered elastic that left her arms and shoulders and midriff bare. She had broken out in goose bumps before they even sat down. The theater was almost empty. There were only some little kids sitting in the front row and a few others running up and down the aisle.

  Linda and Robin had come in right in the middle of one feature. It was an old murder mystery with a shaky sound track that made all the actors sound as if they were gargling when they spoke. There were already a few dead bodies lying around, and a million suspects. Robin couldn’t make head or tail of it. She turned to ask if Linda knew what was going on, and to complain about the cold, and saw that Linda was staring straight ahead without seeing anything, tears streaming down her face, and her whole body shaking.

  They stayed for both features, Linda crying soundlessly the entire time. When the show ended and the lights came on, they left the theater, got back into the car, and out onto the road again.

  “Where are we?” Robin asked as she came awake. The car was pulling in somewhere and the sky was brilliant with stars.

  “Motel,” Linda said. Then she opened her door and staggered out, past the lit Vacancy sign, toward the motel office.

  Robin imagined they’d driven pretty far. They usually stopped before it was this dark. Her stomach whined with hunger and she wondered if there was a place open around there where they could get supper. As far as she could tell, Linda had not eaten since the wedding breakfast, and Robin had only had some sweet rolls she’d filched from the restaurant that morning, and the taco chips and Coke she’d bought at the movie theater in the afternoon. Linda looked exhausted, as if she just wanted to fall into the nearest bed and sleep for a few weeks.

  Robin was wide awake and buzzing with need. She had to eat, to drink some water, to pee, to move her cramped legs, even to talk. She left the car, too. Her right foot had fallen asleep and it began to tingle with moving blood as she stamped on it and did a little dance in the parking lot of the Carioca Motel, which boasted Color TV, Telephones, and In-Room Coffee. The ones that bragged about having telephones were usually as bad as the ones that didn’t have them. And In-Room Coffee, which sounded like an interesting phenomenon the first time they saw it advertised, in Indiana, turned out to be a little water-stained Pyrex beaker sitting on an electric coil, with two Styrofoam cups and two packets of instant coffee nearby. Linda had acted as if some handsome stranger had sent champagne to their room. “Isn’t this nice!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t this lovely!” And even though neither of them was particularly fond of coffee, she’d filled the little beaker in the bathroom and made some. It tasted peculiar, as if the water had come from a fish tank or something.

  Linda came out of the Carioca office carrying a key, and she was still lurching around in that dopey, drunken way. “Come on, it’s all the way down the other end,” she said to Robin, and got back into the car.

  “I’m hungry,” Robin complained. “Aren’t we going to have any supper? We didn’t even have lunch.”

  “I cannot drive another inch beyond that room,” Linda said. “But I saw a machine in the office. You can go get yourself something if you want to.”

  Robin held out her hand for money. She wasn’t going to dip into the small store of funds she’d been accumulating from her forays into Linda’s purse. The night before, Robin had woken up and found herself alone in the Hide-a-Bed. Tanya was snoring away on the cot, and Linda was gone, probably with Wolfie somewhere, climbing all over each other. Robin took five dollars. In the morning, in desperate daring, and because Linda looked so preoccupied, she took three more. By the time Linda noticed her loss, if she ever noticed it, she’d have to consider other suspects: Tanya, maybe, or Montie. It was Robin’s own money she was taking, anyway, kind of like withdrawing it from a bank. There was no actual question of theft, and she’d probably still come out way behind unless she found the real stash before they parted.

  Now Linda gave her a handful of change, told her it was room 14, and drove away.

  Robin hoped she wasn’t going to find one of those machines with nothing but Life Savers and gum in it. Linda was so beat she might not have even noticed if it was a Dispenz-All, like they had in the bus station in Newark, a machine that coughed up combs, pocket packs of Kleenex, lipstick, little magnetic scottie dogs, and emergency vials of lilac perfume.

  Robin opened the door to the office and there was nobody there. A bell above the door had tinkled, though, and soon a further door opened and a man in a bathrobe stumbled out. He didn’t even look at her. “Twelve-fifty single,” he said. “Fifteen double. TV, phone, and In-Room Coffee.”

  “I’m already checked in,” Robin said. “I just came out to get something to eat.”

  “Oh, good Christ,” he said, and went back behind the door, slamming it.

  She was glad to be alone in the office. Sometimes it took her a while to make up her mind about the food in vending machines, and she didn’t like anyone looking over her shoulder, offering advice or rushing her. This was a sandwich dispenser, the kind with a glass front and the cut ends of the sandwiches facing the customer. There was a choice of ham, turkey, chicken, or tuna. The last three appeared indistinguishable from one another, and Robin knew that they would all taste pretty much the same, too, slick with mayonnaise and a little fishy. Still, she hesitated, trying to make up her mind. Linda had given her plenty of change. She spread it across the registration desk to count it. Two dollars and ninety-five cents. The sandwiches were seventy-five each. She could eat at least two of them, probably three, and still have a few cents left over for her fund. Linda would be too wiped out to remember to ask for her change. Robin pushed the money into the slot and pressed the selection buttons for one turkey, one chicken, and one tuna. She could amuse herself later by trying to guess which was which. And she knew from experience that the ham, cut into see-through slices, would be salty and dry. Each time a sandwich dropped into place, the machine rang and there was a muffled answering curse from behind the inner door.

  Number 14 was at the very end of the L-shaped building. It had to be pretty late, Robin thought. There were a few other cars pulled up to other numbered doors, but all those room windows were dark, and except for some crickets singing in the black distance, it was quiet, too. Nobody in there reading, or groping somebody else, or making cut-rate long-distance phone calls or lousy In-Room Coffee.

  Linda was asleep already. She’d left the lock off so that Robin could get in without a key. All the lights were on in the room, but
those dusty, 40-watt bulbs didn’t illuminate the place beyond a frustrating dimness. Robin, feeling lively and curious despite her hunger and other discomforts, looked around. It was one of the ugliest rooms they’d had so far. The two narrow beds didn’t even match. One had a cracked tufted headboard, and the other one was metal and severe. It looked as if it had been used previously in a hospital or an orphanage. Linda lay on the metal bed, corpselike in her pallor, arms folded across her chest. She always claimed to be such a light sleeper, but she didn’t make a move now as Robin clattered around, dropping one shoe and then the other, rattling wire hangers in the closet, and flushing the toilet.

  There was a sheet of paper taped to a wall in the bathroom, just to the left of the light switch. It was a child’s broad-handed drawing of clouds, and it was signed, in tall, careful letters, Maureen W. A kid who stayed here once had probably done it, maybe the daughter of a widowed traveling salesman, who went everywhere with him. Robin had a sudden image of a small, serious girl sitting cross-legged on the bed, frowning with concentration, replacing each crayon in the box after she used it. The father was in the bathroom, shaving. When he came out, he made a big fuss over the picture and insisted they hang it right up, the way her mother used to do on the door of the refrigerator at home.

  It was a familiar drawing—the clouds were like cotton balls against the Crayola blue of the sky; a traditional yellow sun emerged from a corner of the page—but Robin kept staring at it as if it were extraordinary graffiti, and contained a special heavenly message. The ordinary kind was pretty much the same in every state they’d visited: Bobbi and Pete fucked here. If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat. Remember God loves you.

  Robin wondered again where they were. They must have crossed into Arizona while she slept. She wished she hadn’t slept that long. It was going to be hard to fall asleep now, and even harder to stay awake alone in this crummy place. She got into the bed with the tufted headboard, still dressed, taking the sandwiches with her. The silence was going to drive her crazy. Everything she didn’t want to think about would fly into her head. Glancing at Linda once more, she got out of bed and put the television set on, careful to move the volume button to its lowest position first. There were three working channels. One of them had nothing but a test pattern, accompanied by that irritating signal hum. The second channel was showing the kind of movie Robin hated, a war picture in which the heroes took a couple of years to die after they were shot. The third one was signing off with a film of a flapping flag and a recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” barely audible with the volume down, as if it were being played by an orchestra of mice. Robin shut off the set. “Linda?” she said, softly at first, and then in a louder, more conversational tone.