by Nancy Thayer
Nell got the children home and made them brush their teeth, then tucked them in bed. She talked to them, or rather listened to them, for a long time, because she knew they needed this sense of closeness, needed to know she was accessible to them in this strange new place. Finally, they went to sleep. She went back downstairs. Andy had spent the evening reading. Nell did some more laundry. She noticed that the dinner dishes still sat on the table. As she carried the laundry back up the stairs, she thought to herself: Now cool down, Nell. For she never did the dishes at Andy’s house. There was no reason for him to do the dishes here. But tonight they irked her. Tonight she felt like everyone’s maid. Tonight, she thought, giving herself a mental kick, tonight you’re just looking for trouble.
Finally, she showered and slipped into her pretty black nightgown and went downstairs. The shower had helped. Andy’s face when she entered the room helped, too. He pulled her to him, kissed her, got her a glass of wine, told her about his book. They talked awhile, and Nell relaxed. He had had a difficult day, too, it turned out; complications with his writing, one of his word processors had broken down and had to be shipped off-island, a tax hassle that Andy discussed in detail, incensed. Nell’s irritation was soon replaced by the sort of sweet exhaustion that seeps into one’s bones after hard work. It was pleasurable to sit grousing companionably with him, knowing that soon they would make each other forget the troubles of the day. It made her almost glad of the troubles. When they went upstairs, Nell checked the children’s room to be sure they were soundly sleeping. Then she went to bed with Andy, knowing that soon she would get used to this new routine. It was sweet falling asleep with those she loved all gathered under the same roof.
Elizabeth had warned Nell that the month of August would be very busy in the boutique, but Nell was still surprised by the crowds of people who came into the store each day. It got so that Nell nearly burst into tears if she awoke to find that it was raining, because on rainy days the tourists passed their time in the shops. It was true that business improved. More clothes were sold. But many of the people who came in were only browsing. They would unfold sweaters, hold them up in front of them, then drop them in a pile on the counter and wander aimlessly over to the dresses. They’d take a size 12 dress out, study it a bit, then thoughtlessly shove it back somewhere among size 6’s or 8’s. The dressing rooms began to look like the space beneath Jeremy’s bed from unwanted clothing that had been tried on, then dropped, inside out, onto the floor. Usually the customers were polite, but each day there was at least one person, and often more, who felt insulted by the lack of personal patient attention or by Nell’s not having their size in stock. Then the man or woman would take out whatever frustration he or she was feeling at that moment on Nell or Mindy or Kelly, the new part-time girl.
* * *
“What kind of shop are you running here?” someone would say.
“Oh well, what can you expect when you’ve got teenagers running the place,” another person said in front of Mindy. “These kids don’t care about helping people, they’re only passing the time until college starts again.” Mindy had been talking to one customer on the phone and writing up a receipt for another when this was said.
More often than not, Nell found she had to spend a few minutes at the end of each day soothing and complimenting Mindy or Kelly so that they wouldn’t quit. She told Elizabeth this during one of their long-distance phone conversations, and the second week in August Elizabeth flew over to check out the situation. She spent two days in the boutique with Nell and took Nell out to lunch the second day at the Water Club. To Nell’s surprise, Elizabeth showered Nell with praise: The boutique had never done so well, had never done such a volume of business, had never looked so good so consistently.
“But do you realize,” Elizabeth said to Nell, “that you’re working yourself to death in there?”
Nell looked at Elizabeth, amazed. She did not think she was working herself to death, but she was working awfully hard. In the past ten days she had invited Andy over to the house only twice, claiming complete exhaustion the other evenings. Then she had fixed some easy dinner for herself and the children and sat around with them, eating with her fingers and watching old TV reruns. On her days off, she had taken the children to the beach. Andy had not joined them, because he didn’t like the beaches in August, when they were crowded with tourists. She missed being with Andy, and yet she was just too tired to make the effort that having him around required when the children were there. He was always polite to Hannah and Jeremy, but not charmed or even very interested, and in spite of all her rationality, Nell couldn’t help but feel hurt by this.
Now as she sat looking at Elizabeth, she realized how convenient it was for her that the shop was so busy, that she was overworked. Exhaustion from overwork was much easier to deal with than exhaustion from failed hopes. She did not know exactly what it was she had hoped would happen between Andy and her children—but certainly more than this. And she could not help but think of Stellios, who had genuinely liked the children and had enjoyed talking about all sorts of things with them—trucks, cement mixers, astronauts, television shows, E.T., horrible gory accidents, space aliens—sometimes Nell had secretly scorned him for his boyish enthusiasms, but now she saw how his näiveté had permitted him a truer, closer access to the children than Andy’s intellectual brilliance would ever permit.
Still, she thought, she was having the affair with Andy, not her children. And the two nights during the past ten days that he had been with her had been lovely. He had insisted on bringing dinner both times, and if he had not tried to charm the children or to get to know them, neither had he snubbed them. He had listened to them chatter at the dinner table. He had brought a book to read while Nell played cards with them or let them watch the TV shows they wanted. He had cleaned up the kitchen while Nell put the children to bed. And when he and Nell went to bed—it had been wonderful. Then it seemed to be worth everything. He had turned her onto her stomach and massaged her neck and shoulders and back, her buttocks and legs and arms. “My poor darling,” he said. “You’re working so hard. I miss you,” he said. “It’s no fun being without you in the evenings, and it’s terrible without you at night.” Then he had kissed all the places he had massaged and finally turned her over to kiss her face and shoulders and breasts and belly. Nell had been weak with happiness and love.
Now Elizabeth was saying, “You look awful, you look peaked, Nell. Listen, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll hire Kelly full time. That should allow you to take a little more time off. Set your own hours. Take the afternoon off now and then and get out to the beach, get some sun. Or leave the shop early some evenings and go out to dinner. Go to parties. Have some fun. If you feel guilty, remember that when you’re meeting people at parties, you’re advertising the boutique, in a way. People will drop in to see you.” She leaned back and scrutinized Nell. “I’m surprised you haven’t met any men here.”
“Oh but I have, Elizabeth,” Nell said. “In fact I met a man in your shop, and I’ve been sort of going with him ever since. I had seen him on the beach, and he came into the shop to buy a present for his daughter. The next morning I met him on the beach again and had coffee with him, and I’ve been—seeing—him ever since.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said. “Good for you, Nell. Who is this character?”
“Character is the right word for him,” Nell laughed. The excellent lunch and Elizabeth’s kindness and the enormous strawberry daiquiri she was drinking were having a warming effect on her. And now she was having the chance to talk about her lover, which was such a pleasurable thing to do. She wondered how to describe him to Elizabeth, how to capture in words all his intriguing qualities. Smugly, she leaned her arms on the table, leaned forward, and began, “His name is Andy Martindale—”
“Andy Martindale!” Elizabeth said. “Oh, Nell. Jesus Christ.”
“Do you know him?” Nell asked.
Elizabeth laughed. “You sold a sweater to Andy
Martindale?”
“For his sixteen-year-old daughter,” Nell said, defensive.
“Listen, darling,” Elizabeth said. “Andy Martindale could buy the whole shop for his daughter if he wanted to. Didn’t you know that? No, I can see you didn’t. Oh, Nell, you child. Of all the men on the island, you get involved with Andy Martindale. He’s wealthy, Nell, and he’s also very much not for you.”
Nell stared at Elizabeth. “Wealthy? I don’t understand,” she said. “He doesn’t act wealthy. He said he used to invent things, things for private planes, and now he’s writing a book on twentieth-century technology.”
Elizabeth sighed and lit a cigarette. She leaned back in her chair and looked at Nell. “Andy’s father,” she said, “is dead now. But he invented some damn nut or bolt or screw—I can’t remember exactly—that is essential to airplanes. He patented it. It’s even called a Martindale. Andy will be wealthy forever on the royalties from that little piece of metal. I suppose he did tinker around with stuff for private planes; Lord knows his family owns enough factories for him to tinker around in. But all that doesn’t matter. The money doesn’t matter, Nell, I mean. What does matter is that he is a womanizer. No, that’s the wrong word. He doesn’t chase after women or keep strings of them around. He’s really more of a recluse than a cad, I guess. I mean, he is charming and all that, and women fall in love with him, but he is incapable of making any kind of commitment. He’ll let a woman make all kinds of concessions in her life, but he’ll never make any. Don’t look that way, Nell. I know what I’m talking about. One of my closest friends, Rachel Woods, was in love with him about four years ago. She met him in the summer and moved from New York to be near him, because he won’t leave this island. She wanted to marry him and she thought he loved her and would eventually marry her. But of course he didn’t. Good heavens, the man is a—an island. He’s content to be by himself. If you want to be with him, you can, if you can make the arrangements. But he’s not moving. He’ll never chase you. He’ll never change his habits for you. Believe me, if he wouldn’t change for Rachel, who is one of the most truly beautiful women on this earth and also a terribly classy woman, well, Nell, he’ll never change for you. Oh, Nell, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put it that way. Rachel’s one of my oldest friends and it was just terrible when she got hurt. As a matter of fact, I don’t think she’ll ever get over him. She moved back to New York after a few months here—the winter here is grim—and she’s going on with her life. But he broke her heart. And he’ll break yours if you get involved with him. Oh God, Nell, please don’t cry. Shit. Don’t tell me you’re in love with him. Well, now I feel just awful.”
“Elizabeth,” Nell said, blowing her nose. “Tell me one thing, please. Maybe you don’t know the answer. But did Andy ever tell Rachel that he loved her? Did he ever say ‘I love you’ to Rachel?”
Elizabeth laughed and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. “You are a chump,” she said. “Jesus Christ, Nell, you are a natural born sucker. Of course he said ‘I love you’ to Rachel. Sweetheart, don’t be such a little dummy. Do you think saying ‘I love you’ means anything to men? Oh, honey, any man will say ‘I love you’ if he thinks it’ll get a woman to lie down and spread her legs.”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” Nell said. “What a gross, depressing, nasty thing to say.”
“Oh, Nell,” Elizabeth said, staring Nell in the eye. “How is it you can do such a marvelous job of running the boutique and such a ridiculous job of running your life?”
“You can’t help who you fall in love with,” Nell said.
“No, that’s true,” Elizabeth replied. “But you can help who hurts you. You can keep away from fire because your mother told you it’s hot, and you can keep away from Andy Martindale because I’m telling you he’s poison.”
Nell looked at her boss, defeated. She just sat at the table and stared down at the remains of the luncheon, at the white linen, the shining silverware, the rosy daiquiri, still half-full. Nell could not think of any reason that Elizabeth would have to hate her, to want her miserable. But she would rather have it be that her boss despised her enough to tell malicious lies than that she was telling the truth. Nell picked up her daiquiri and downed the rest in one long drink, but even though she was unaccustomed to drinking alcohol at lunch, the cool liquid did absolutely nothing to anesthetize her. It seemed to her that there was no way for her to get up from this moment, from this table, and go forward with her life.
But of course she did get up and move on. She went back to the boutique and worked with Elizabeth for the rest of the afternoon. She drove Elizabeth to the airport at six so that she could catch a plane back to New York.
“Don’t look so glum,” Elizabeth said. “There are plenty of fish in the sea. Go out to more parties, meet more men! And don’t look at me that way. Hating the bearer of bad tidings went out with Cleopatra. You’ll thank me someday for saving you a lot of time and emotional agony.”
“I suppose,” Nell said, though she doubted it.
“Well, dear,” Elizabeth went on, kissing the air near Nell’s cheek. “It was wonderful seeing you again, and you’re doing a fabulous job with the boutique. You are amazing, Nell. Now take care of yourself. Don’t work too hard. Remember, we’re relying on you.” She turned and walked the short distance from the gate to the small waiting plane.
Nell called Andy from the airport to tell him that because of Elizabeth’s visit, she was too exhausted to see him that evening. That was fine, Andy said; there was a two-hour documentary on Charles Lindbergh that he wanted to watch on public television. Goddamn you, Elizabeth was right, Nell wanted to shout, but of course she didn’t. But his satisfied self-sufficiency only seemed to prove Elizabeth’s point. Nell drove home, crying all the way. She managed to be moderately civil to her children, at least to keep from crying in front of them, and they were tired from camp and oblivious of her feelings. After she got them into bed, she took a long hot bath and began crying there.
She had forgotten her theory, it seemed, that some women were naturally lucky in love and some women weren’t. She had forgotten it, or thought somehow she had escaped from the wrong side and managed to sneak on over to the side of those lucky lovable ones. But now she felt she had been exposed for a fool, scrambling around thinking she was safe when all the time she was just still on her own home ground, where she would always remain. Alone.
She waited awhile in the living room, hoping Clary would come home so they could talk, but after a while, she realized that if Clary was coming home it wouldn’t be early. She went to bed.
The next day did not improve matters. Nell went off to work, trying to be optimistic, trying at least not to be suicidal. She looked up in the middle of the day to see Ilona walk in the door. She had a marvelously handsome man at her side.
“Nell!” Ilona cried. “Surprise! Isn’t this fun? Frank and I have come over to spend a few days in the sun, and I said we just had to surprise you. Can we take you out to dinner tonight?”
Ilona had never looked so tall, slim, rich, and stunning in her life. Frank, who was quickly gaining the name “the hunk” in Nell’s private thoughts, gazed at Ilona with adoration in his eyes and couldn’t keep his hands off her sumptuously clad body. After just a few moments in their presence, Nell felt as if she were literally growing shorter, older, dowdier, and lonelier. But she had agreed to join them for dinner; she could tell how Ilona wanted Nell around to be witness to her new happiness.
Nell settled her children in front of the TV that night with a pizza and fruit and milk and changed into a fresh dress and diligently put on her makeup. She had called Andy to ask if he could join them, and Andy had accepted. This could be a lovely evening, Nell told herself, but she knew it would not be lovely. She felt strange now, because of Elizabeth’s warning. She couldn’t decide whether to mention Elizabeth’s friend Rachel to Andy or not. She felt miserable and awkward, childish. And she was afraid that if she told Andy all that Elizabeth h
ad said, she would be appearing to ask for some kind of commitment from Andy. It would seem that she was trying to cajole or force something from him that he had not yet been ready to give willingly. She did not want to do that. She had known him for only three months, after all. He had told her he loved her. It should not matter to her that he had once loved a woman named Rachel; it should not matter that he was a fucking island. But of course it did matter, so much so that when she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw her face set with lines of worry and sadness. Great, Nell, she thought; he’ll really fall in love with you now. You look like some old shrew. She tried to relax the muscles of her face, to smile.
She must have managed to look normal during the course of the evening, because Ilona never nudged her or indicated any concern. And when Nell saw Andy, was seated next to him in the car, at the table … her body just overruled her mind and went all sappy with love and pleasure. They went to the Dockside for dinner and sat at a table laid with fresh flowers and candles. Nell breathed in deep drafts of the civilized evening air. She liked the crystal, the careful attentions of the waiters and water boys, the murmur and laughter of other people in the room, the way the light gleamed and deepened outside the windows as clouds passed through the sky and night gently fell. The food was excellent. The wine was delicious. Ilona’s lover, Frank, was a doctor, and he was an amiable and courteous man. He and Andy got on fine. Everyone seemed so clever.
