Ann had been a baby when Howard left us, but she had a built-in detector for domestic conflict, just as she had for our sexual activity. She was twelve years old when I discovered the lump in my breast. Her own breasts were still dormant then, but ready to bloom, and she was horribly pre-adolescent. She moped around Howard a lot, desperately in love with the idea of love. Everything she said was punctuated by a whinnying laugh I prayed she’d outgrow. That weekend she seemed particularly unstable, and her high-pitched laughter resounded in every room of the house. I felt a deep, aching pity for both of my children, as if they were already motherless, way before anyone else could possibly find them lovable.
Howard was a nervous wreck, but he rallied to give me sympathy and encouragement. He gathered evidence in my favor: that I’d nursed the children, that there was no family history of breast cancer, that he loved me madly.
“But what if it’s the worst,” I said, “and I have to lose my breast?”
“I’ll love you just as much, babe,” Howard said. “I’ll love you even more.”
I became furious. “That’s a stupid, sexist remark!” I hissed.
Howard looked bewildered.
“We’re not talking about how you’ll feel,” I said. “We’re talking about me, about my body. I’ll be lopsided!” I wailed.
“Then we’ll put a matchbook under your foot,” Howard said, making me laugh and cry at the same time.
When I couldn’t fall asleep, he rubbed my back until his hands must have become numb. He kissed my breasts—for luck, he said—and it was more of a blessing than a sexual gesture. We did make love, though, several times, and with life-affirming urgency.
The suspense continued way past the weekend. On Tuesday my gynecologist examined me and ordered a mammogram. He and the radiologist disagreed on their reading of it, and by Friday I had an appointment for Monday with a breast specialist. We went through the second weekend even more terrified than we’d been during the first one. And the following week there was the biopsy and the anxiety of waiting for that report. Howard and I were in the kitchen together when the doctor called and said that the lump had been completely benign. Oh, what a benign and lovely word! I stood there, stunned by the charge of restored happiness. “See?” Howard shouted. “Didn’t I tell you?” He was crying and wiping his eyes with a dish towel. I remember that Jason came out of his room again to see if we were fighting.
Since then I’ve only examined my breasts on Mondays, and it was a Monday in early November when I began weeping in Mary and Jim’s shower, and couldn’t stop for a long time. I wept for my lost marriage, the way my mother had for hers at my father’s funeral, with earnest, noisy grief that bounced and echoed around the tile walls. I felt better when I was done, relieved of some of memory’s burden. While I was getting dressed, I started humming tunelessly, and when I went downstairs to do my marketing, I walked with a purposeful stride. For the first time since I’d been living in the city, I bought enough groceries for more than one day’s meals. And I bought freezer paper and Tabasco sauce and a thrifty, jumbo-size box of laundry detergent. Later that day, after a few hours of proofreading, I put one of my notebooks into my purse and went to the Forty-second Street library. I’d taken to writing there, at one of the individual study desks. It was quiet, but not isolated. Other people wrote and studied at the other desks, and the scratching pens and rustling pages comforted and inspired me.
I wasn’t writing whole poems yet, only jotting down words and phrases—mostly impressions of the city. It had been a long time since I’d written anything but my column, and I felt a little timid, but hopeful. I’d been sitting there thinking and scribbling for about fifteen minutes when someone came up behind me and said, “I’ve been wondering what happened to you.”
It was Bernie Rusten. I hadn’t seen him since my last day at the Port Washington library, and I blushed now, as if he’d caught me in some illicit act. “Well, I’ve moved,” I said, closing my notebook. “I live in Manhattan now.”
“How is your husband doing?” he asked.
“He’s better,” I said. “But we’re separated.” I didn’t know why I’d felt the need to blurt this fact. Maybe it was habit—I used to see Bernie nearly every week in Port Washington, and I’d given him news briefs of our lives before.
“Then he can’t really be better,” Bernie said. “Not better off, anyway.”
“But I am,” I said boldly.
“Yes, you look very well,” he said, but it wasn’t a medical appraisal. His gaze was acute and full of implication, and I had to glance away, as if to resist a spell. The woman at the neighboring desk was glaring at us for talking.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, changing the subject.
“The usual,” he whispered back. “Looking things up. They sure have a better selection than Port Washington. But am I interrupting you?”
“No, no,” I said, and as if to prove it, I shoved my notebook and pen back into my purse.
“Then let’s go someplace for coffee.”
“Yes, let’s!” I said, with so much enthusiasm he laughed, and the woman at the other desk said, “Shhh!”
We ended up in a booth at a Sixth Avenue bar, drinking beer, and I told him pretty nearly everything. He had that quality some doctors have, no matter what their specialty, that invites confession and intimacy. But at least it was reciprocal. He told me things about himself I hadn’t known. I found out that his wife, Ellen, had been his college sweetheart, at Cornell, and had been forty-four when she died. She was driving home alone from work when the accident happened; the other driver had been drinking and ran a stop sign. Ellen was a marine biologist, he said, and they’d never had any children. He told me that, right after they got married and he opened his first office, she’d sit in his waiting room sometimes, reading, to make his practice look more prosperous. He took off his glasses as he said that, and the focus of his blue eyes softened. It allowed me to look directly at him for the first time that day. I had a sudden, jarring vision of him in a white lab coat, of myself behind a screen, undressing. “Do you have a busy practice now?” I asked.
“Yes, but I’m part of a group,” he said. “There are four of us, and we rotate duty. How about you? What were you writing before, in the library?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I used to write poems when I was younger. I’m fooling around with that again, but I’m not getting very far.”
“It’s funny, but I’ve always thought of you as a writer,” he said.
That gave me an odd sensation, as if he’d said something amorous. “Probably because we met in a library,” I said. “You remind me of a writer, too, you know. Of William Carlos Williams.”
He looked pleased. “The Paterson doctor,” he said. “I read him, on your advice. I liked the stories a lot, and the poems, too, especially the later ones.”
“I can never eat a plum without thinking of him,” I said, and that, too, seemed like a confession, and to have a double meaning.
He put his glasses back on and said, “Paulie … Is that short for Pauline? Or Paulette?”
“Paulette.”
“It’s a pretty name,” he said. “Your father must have had a crush on Paulette Goddard.”
“No, actually, I think my mother did. But nobody ever calls me that. Everybody says Paulie,” I said, remembering Howard saying it.
“Paulette suits you better.”
I pretended that wasn’t such a personal remark. “My mother claims I almost killed her, being born,” I said, “and she never had any other children. I think that’s why she really picked that name—you know, the female version of a masculine one?—to cover all bases. Most people hate their own names, don’t they?” God, I was jabbering like an idiot.
“Yeah, I guess so. I never liked mine much. It’s Bernhard, with an ‘h.’”
“I know,” I said, “from your library card.”
“A few of my friends call me Rusty.”
“But Bernie suits
you better,” I said, amazed that I’d done it, that I’d completed the overture to courtship he’d begun. We sat there without speaking for a while, and then I said, “Well, this is nice, isn’t it,” just to say something, to break the hush of sexual tension.
“It is,” he agreed. “It just proves that it pays to hang around libraries.”
“Do you ever do anything with all your research?” I asked. “I mean, are you writing something?”
“No,” he said. “Should I be?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Would you help me if I did?”
“Oh, I’m not a writer,” I said. “Not that kind, anyway.” And we fell into another loaded silence in the crowded, noisy bar. “I’d better go,” I said. “There are things I have to do,” although I couldn’t think of a single one at that moment.
He took my hand and the little current of pleasure I’d dreaded and longed for quivered through me. Did he feel it, too? And could he feel my rampant pulse? We both stood, still connected by our hands. “Goodbye,” I said helplessly. “This was really lovely.”
“I’m going to call you,” he said. “Is your number listed?”
“Yes, with Information. It’s not in the book yet, though.” And I took my hand back and walked away.
20
IT WAS MY DAY off from the studio, and I’d planned to hang around the house and do some yard work, blow my sax a little, and just relax. But I couldn’t stay with anything very long, even lying in bed and listening to music. I realized that I was talking to the dog more than usual, which wasn’t very different from talking to myself. “Want to hear a little Bix?” I asked him in the middle of the morning. “Or are you more in the mood for Coltrane?” Later, I said, “What should we have for lunch, boy? Something healthy or something good?” Shadow didn’t answer, of course. But he made three heroic attempts to get onto the bed with me—I guess arthritis was slowing him down—and I hoisted him up and continued our one-sided conversation. “It sure is boring around here,” I said. “It’s a dog’s life, isn’t it?” I knew it wasn’t exactly boredom I was feeling, but the kind of restless anxiety I’d had years ago right after I’d bought the extra life insurance. This time it probably had something to do with witnessing Gil’s and Sharon’s wills, with the fact that death didn’t get more attractive just because you weren’t particularly enjoying life.
I ended up back in bed with a two-sandwich lunch: peanut butter on whole wheat and pastrami on a roll, as a compromise between healthy and good. And I compromised further by eating only half of each and feeding the rest to Shadow. I wasn’t that hungry, anyway. “What do you say we go for a ride?” I said.
Shadow’s ears pricked up, and he struggled to get his footing on the rumpled quilt. This was language he understood: the words “ride” or “walk,” the jingling of his chain lead or the sound of the garage door lifting.
In the car he sat erectly beside me, like a navigator, although he didn’t give a damn where we went as long as we were rolling. At that moment, neither did I. I drove through the development and down to Northern Boulevard, where I headed west for a few miles, and then made a U-turn and went east. The last time I drove around aimlessly like this, I was young and single, and cruising for action. Now it seemed pointless, as if I was only going in circles, and fifteen or twenty minutes later I was actually back in Port Washington, not very far from home. I pulled off onto a side road, in another development, and tried to decide what to do next. A woman in the house across the street peered through her curtains at me and then disappeared. A couple of minutes later a big, beefy-looking guy came out and walked over to the car. “You looking for somebody, buddy?” he said. He put his hand on the roof and I felt the car rock.
“No,” I said. “I’m just a little lost. I’m trying to get my bearings.” To back myself up, I took a map from the glove compartment and started opening it. I saw that it was a map of Jersey, and I crumpled it and jammed it back inside. “I guess I’ll get going,” I said. “I think I missed my turnoff at the last light.”
“What street were you looking for?” he said, his hand like a sandbag on the roof, and without thinking I said “Sherwood Lane,” my own street. Shit! If this guy got really worked up, the cops would be prowling my neighborhood later, and they’d probably have my plate number, too, from his wife. The curtains across the street had rippled a few times since he’d come out. Maybe he was a cop himself—and how the hell would I talk my way out of this? But he seemed to know Sherwood Lane, and he got much friendlier after I mentioned it. He began giving me complicated directions back to my own house, and I pretended to listen and memorize them—“Let’s see, that was a right at the Exxon station, and then I go straight for two lights …” I thanked him, a little too heartily, and took off.
Jesus, being alone was dangerous. “That was a close call, Kemo Sabe,” I said. “Maybe we should go to work and stay out of trouble.” I was already heading toward Hempstead and the studio. I could give Mike a hand there, and if things slacked off, we could play a couple of hands of gin. Having plans, any plans at all, cheered me up somewhat, and the rest of the way there I whistled, and I didn’t talk to Shadow or myself anymore.
I saw the Mazda as soon as I hit the street. It was parked directly in front of the studio, right behind Mike’s Chevy. My first impulse was to floor the gas pedal and keep going. I was mad as hell about Janine’s lies to Paulie, and I wanted an explanation, but she’d never returned my calls, and as time went by I got lulled into thinking it was just as well, that I didn’t need the hassle of dealing with her on top of everything else. And I was too depressed by then to stay that angry. But there was unpleasant, unfinished business between Janine and me, and when I saw her car, I knew my life would never get straightened out until I took care of it.
I drove around for several minutes before I found a spot three blocks away. I parked, cracked one of the windows open for Shadow, and started running toward the studio, worried that I might have missed her. But the Mazda was still there. I popped a nitro and leaned against the wall, waiting to catch my breath. When I tried to open the studio door, I realized it was locked. My fist came up to knock, and then I lowered it and took out my keys. It was quiet inside, and the lights in the reception area and the control room were off. I was pretty quiet myself, but they must have heard me, because a few seconds later Mike came out from the back room, barefoot and tousled, and with his shirt unbuttoned. “What are you doing here, man?” he asked.
“I’m with the vice squad,” I said dryly. “It’s a raid.”
“Listen, Flax—” he began.
“No, you listen to me. I thought we were running a business here. Is this all you have to do?”
“This is my coffee break, man,” he said, running his hands through his mussed-up hair. “Hey, you know how it is.” He laughed uneasily and glanced behind him.
“Sure, I like something sweet with my coffee, too.”
“So maybe you could come back a little later …” he said.
“Mike, I know who you’ve got in there.”
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Look, we finished the demo this morning. You’re the one who told me to finish the fucking demo for her, remember?”
Then Janine appeared in the doorway, fully dressed, which in her case was a kind of nakedness. “Hello, Howie,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I turned to Mike. “Take a walk for a while, okay?” I said. “I want to talk to Janine.”
Mike gave her a rueful look, went into the back for his shoes, and left without saying anything. I locked the front door behind him. “Come here,” I said to Janine, and she came slowly into the reception area. “Sit down,” I said.
She hesitated and then she perched on the edge of one of the plastic chairs. I sat on another one, facing her, wondering how to begin.
“Well, we’re even now, aren’t we?” she said, with a kind of nervous defiance.
I stared at her, not comprehending. Then slowly it dawne
d on me. I’d gone back to my wife and she’d screwed my partner, and now we were supposed to be even. Those were pretty weird sexual politics, even for these days. And when it came down to it, we weren’t even at all, because I’d lost my marriage in the deal. I shook my head, as if to clear it. “I don’t give a damn about you and Mike,” I said, which was or wasn’t true, but it made her wince. “But why did you have to go to Paulie? You knew things were finished between you and me. Why the hell did you have to lie to her and kill my marriage, too?”
“Is that all it took to do that?” she said, holding her hands up in mock surprise.
“You know what I’m talking about. You know what you did,” I said, but a sick, hot feeling was spreading through me. It wasn’t her, it wasn’t only her. Still, I said, “I’d like to kill you.”
“Well, go ahead, if it will make you feel better,” she said, and she bared her teeth in a terrible grin.
For some reason, I thought of her thin singing voice, the flamboyant, ambitious gestures she made when she sang. Then I had a sudden flash of her Hicksville kitchen, of her husband bouncing her off the counters, the refrigerator, the walls. I stood up, shakily, and walked out of the studio. Mike was on the corner, his shoes untied, pacing like an expectant father.
“We’re not running a day-rate motel,” I said. “Take her somewhere else the next time.”
“Listen, man—” he began, but I walked quickly away from him, and he didn’t follow me.
21
THE DOWNSTAIRS BELL RANG, and I pressed the talk button on the intercom. “Yes?” I said. There was the usual static, and then a man’s voice I didn’t recognize said, “Paulie?”
Silver Page 16
