Love In the Air

by James Collins

  Ah, well, Christ. Dick settled down in the chair again. He took off his shoes, partially unzipped his fly, and undid the studs in his shirt and pulled out the tails; he was wearing an undershirt. The great thing about Julia—the great thing—was that she understood him and really cared for him. She was very bright, and in some ways they had more fun just talking than doing anything else. That first passion, of course it wasn’t the same as it had been, but it was still there. Fourteen years since they had been married. Fourteen years after he had been married to Janet, he had long since begun to dislike her smell; once he had liked it. Funny, Julia didn’t seem to have a smell. Well, she was a great girl, and, God knows, he wasn’t the easiest person to live with. The house in France, that was really all her doing. Usually she would be there in June, and he would join her for a week. With the wedding, of course, they couldn’t do that this year. He should really take her someplace to make up for it. But he had London coming up. Meanwhile, there was whatever the next day was going to bring. He wanted nothing more than to get away from this place, and they had planned to leave first thing in the morning, but now, who knows. He’d promised to appear at Janet’s place, dear God. It was a terrible, terrible, tragic thing that had happened, and he felt terrible for Charlotte. But what was he supposed to do? Stand around and be grief-stricken and do the busywork of seeming helpful? That place of Janet’s, he couldn’t stand it. It never seemed exactly clean. Lying around the kitchen someplace there was always a hairbrush with dead hairs so thick you couldn’t see the bristles. Well, there was no alternative.

  More pleasantly, his thoughts returned to Julia lying in bed. It had been crazy of him, after what they had all been through, to even think of anything. Of course she would be terribly upset. But he’d go in and lie down next to her, put his arm around her. When they awoke, drowsy …

  Dick poured himself a bit more brandy and walked over to the sideboard. There had been a chocolate bar, dark chocolate with hazelnuts. Yes, still some left. He loved to crack the hazelnuts with his teeth, then run his tongue along the sharp edges; they contrasted deliciously with the texture of the melting chocolate. He sat down and stretched out his legs. The brandy tasted good, and so did the chocolate bar (and he knew where there was another one).

  After leaving Dick, Julia had closed the bedroom door and leaned her back against it. She took a deep breath and exhaled. It had been an ordeal to sit in the room with him, but she knew she had to be there to receive him when he returned. Jesus Christ. That man.

  She went into the bathroom, hung up the robe, brushed her teeth and tongue vigorously, and drank two full glasses of water. She had drunk much more that night than she usually did. Although she did not feel drunk at all, she noticed that she was unsteady and felt ill. She hadn’t smoked so much for a long time, either. Like a layer of dark paint bleeding through a coat of white, the taste of the bourbon and cigarettes emerged underneath the taste of the toothpaste, despite her efforts, and indeed that added ingredient made for an even more disgusting combination. She rinsed and spat again. Then she looked at herself in the mirror.

  She knew she was very good-looking, but she was not vain. Nor did she have the terror of losing her looks so typical of beautiful neurotics. Certainly she would have liked to arrest the effects of time, and she sometimes asked herself what cost she would bear to achieve that. A million dollars? Ten million? The loss of a couple of toes? The loss of the sight in one eye? To be beautiful forever? The fact was that she secretly believed she would remain beautiful and, relatively speaking, become even more beautiful as she grew older. She saw herself living in France as a beautiful eighty-year-old. She would be called “extraordinary.” That role appealed to her, being one of those extraordinary, beautiful eighty-year-olds. Then, as Julia continued looking at her face, her focus changed. The thought came, as usual: who is this person?

  She stared for another minute, then squeezed a dab of moisturizer from a slender tube and worked it into the skin of her hands. She picked up an errant cotton ball she had used when taking off her makeup and tossed it in the wastebasket with the others. She shut off the light, closed the door, and got into bed.

  Lying on her back, Julia stared at the ceiling. When she was a teenager, she had read in a magazine that sleeping on your side gave you wrinkles, and she decided then that for the rest of her life she would sleep only on her back. To a remarkable degree, she had succeeded. There was a light on somewhere outside, and on the window shade she could see the shadow of a tree branch and its leaves swell and shrink as they swayed in the wind. She lay for a while with her arms outside the bedclothes, resting at her side. It was unpleasant, having drunk as much as she had, especially when it hadn’t even made her drunk. It seemed that at any moment, a gear would become unlocked and the ceiling would begin spinning. At least she had been able to escape from Dick as soon as was decent. She knew that she had to wait for him to come back. He would expect that. She had tried to summon up the initiative to ask him grave questions about the crisis that would allow him to describe his steadying role. She wasn’t up to it. And that lecherous glint in his eye, which he had tried to disguise. No doubt he had hoped that the heightened, tragic atmosphere of the evening would have made her emotional, and, after she threw herself into his arms, he would kiss away her tears, and end up getting laid.

  She stared at the ceiling for a while. Then a tear trickled out of her eye and ran down her cheek, wetting the pillow; now came one more out of her other eye. Still more followed. She wiped her eyes with her fingers and her face with the back of her hand, then shut her eyes with her hand over them. The image she saw was of Jonathan when he first spoke to her at the bridal dinner.

  My God, he was handsome. But it wasn’t just that. They had talked at the dinner, and there had been chemistry, a connection. The book had stayed with her. So had a story she had read not so long ago in the magazine she got. It was about a fourteen-year-old girl who was driving around a suburb on a Saturday afternoon with a college friend of her brother’s. Nothing much happened. He wore a short-sleeved dress shirt, and the girl was revolted by the hair on his arms, which made her think of nests of spiders.

  It was absurd, insane, pathetic. She could not stop herself from thinking that she had fallen in love with him. She had had a few other similar adventures (which was something that Jonathan’s sensors had immediately picked up on), and they had been fun. Of course—of course—this was absolutely no different. It was just that this incredible, horrible tragedy had intervened. She had drunk too much and she was extremely emotional. In the morning she would wake up and everything would be back in the right perspective. But oh God! Oh God, to wake up in the morning and find Jonathan next to her. Quietly, she began to weep, and she turned on her side and curled up. To wake up in the morning and find him next to her, to feel his body’s smoothness and warmth, and to stay there for most of the day. But dear God, no, no, no, no! He was dead. Dead. Think of it. He was dead and he had been killed right before her eyes and she had been with him and then seen it happen. She burst into heaving sobs, which she tried to suppress, for she did not want Dick to hear and use the sound as an excuse to come to her.

  Later, when she was able to think again, she saw that obviously she hadn’t fallen in love with Jonathan. Given the danger and excitement and pleasure of what they had just done, and then the violent, terrifying, deadly turn of events, anyone’s emotions would go haywire. They could not be trusted, and all she needed to do was ride them out. But what if Jonathan’s death was a nightmare, and he called her tomorrow? She would have sold her soul to the devil to make that happen, to touch him, to hear his voice.

  No, Jonathan was dead. And then, with a shudder, she realized that he was not entirely dead. Some parts of him were still alive. They were inside her, living and active. It was like the light from a star that still reaches the earth after the star itself has been extinguished. She put her hand on her stomach. If only it were his hand.

  Mrs. LeMenthe took Ho
lly and Peter along deserted roads lined with large properties, and then up a long, unlit drive to her little brick house. It was snug and cluttered but immaculate. Mrs. LeMenthe made some tea. Holly took a bath. Peter went into a small study to carry out a difficult task: to track down Jonathan’s older sister, Emma, and tell her what had happened and ask her to call her mother and the others who should know. Emma became upset and immediately put her husband on the phone. Jonathan had sometimes told stories about Alan’s cautious, dull ways: “If you want to know the best route to take to avoid a toll, and you have about an hour to listen, Alan is your man.” For his part, Alan received the news with stoicism.

  Holly came down from her bath, and they drank tea and talked, cried, and hugged some more. Mrs. LeMenthe said little, but she and the two dogs—old, floppy, and affectionate—filled the room with a mammalian warmth. Finally, Holly wanted to try to get some sleep. It was decided that the cot in the basement was much too distant for anyone’s happiness, so Mrs. LeMenthe made up the daybed in the guest room, and there Peter now lay. It hadn’t occurred to him to bring any of his own pajamas, so Mrs. LeMenthe had given him an ancient pair of her late husband’s.

  Peter lay awake. Here he was spending his wedding night in a bedroom with Holly. How often had he imagined that? Despite his roiling emotions, he tried to think about it all as clearly as he could, to look at the events of the past few hours rationally and analytically and to put them in their broader context.

  First of all, there was this salient fact: Jonathan was dead. This was tragic. Peter had wept over the loss of his best friend. Peter’s grief aside, however, did not Jonathan’s terrible fate have certain implications? If Jonathan was dead, there followed axiomatically this conclusion: he was no longer Holly’s husband. Further, he was no longer a person, a living person at least, with whom Holly could be in love. Therefore, Holly was free to be in love with someone else. Thus, everything Peter had always wanted was suddenly available to him. The breeze riffling the hairs on his naked arm as he held Holly to him, the setting sun casting her face in its rosy light, the high curve of her foot nestled in the arch of his own.

  To be sure, it wasn’t all clear sailing. Holly was not at present in love with him, for one thing. Of course, she “loved” him. But it was best-friend-of-my-boyfriend-then-husband love. Safe eunuch-intimacy love. Once her period of mourning was over and she got on her feet again, she would be pursued by males who would not have the disadvantage of already being classified in her mind as of only platonic interest. Unbearably, she would probably consult Peter about her love life, asking him to interpret some man’s baffling behavior. It was so nice to have a friend of the opposite sex!

  And yet as the man to whom Holly would turn in her time of grief, Peter did have some advantages. If he bided his time and used subtle encouragements, he might become the object of such an intense attachment on Holly’s part that she would awaken one day and realize that she was in love with him. By sly dealings, he could try to maneuver the vulnerable widow into this position. Peter did not know the success rate, on average, of this approach, but he imagined he was working with decent probabilities. There were, however, other factors that came into play. To take one important example, he himself had gotten married that day. He had dressed up in fancy clothes. His bride had worn white. There had been a church full of well-wishers. There had been vows. Afterward, the bride’s parents had hosted a big party. If he wished to pursue Holly, it would seem evident that his having got married that day would present an obstacle.

  Obstacle? Or opportunity? Nobody stayed married who didn’t want to, did they? It wasn’t any big deal, was it? Sure, no problem. He could flip Charlotte in a year, and nobody would care. In fact, when seeking your own romantic happiness, causing others pain actually gave you a badge of honor. It showed that you were tough enough to do what was necessary for the higher goal—your own fulfillment. No one respects a war leader who goes all soft over civilian casualties, and no one respects a lover who hesitates to pursue his beloved for fear of hurting someone else. In both cases, ruthlessly doing what has to be done earns you credit. How many people, Peter thought, have really been censured for abandoning their wife or husband for the sake of true love and sex? Soon enough, the formerly aghast friends were inviting them around with their new mates, and their air of danger and passion actually made them attractive, while the spouse left behind seemed a bit pathetic, and his or her presence was dreary.

  Peter recalled Charlotte’s face when they were saying their vows. Her expression moved him. She was very happy: her wedding day. She looked pretty and she was glowing. She loved Peter. Her expression told him that. But there was that other sentiment, too, that she conveyed: I know you will be kind to me, Peter, and I am counting on you. Peter was kind, and all along he had had the sense that Charlotte was proud of herself for choosing someone who was not a destructive, cruel, heartbreaking male.

  Peter didn’t mind this. Although it was hard, really, to see any advantage to it in life, he thought it was a good thing that he was kind and that it came naturally. If that was a quality that attracted Charlotte to him as a result of her own weaknesses and painful experiences, why should he object, even if it seemed less like “love” than dependence, or whatever word people who talked about these things used? Charlotte had anchored in what she believed to be a tranquil harbor; could he now surprise her with uncharted reefs and exposure to gales? Left for another woman, Charlotte would feel humiliated, degraded; she would become fraught, and in all the ways she always thought she had to try hard, she would try still harder, and she would wind herself around herself like the wire in a cable. This, of course, would make her less attractive, causing her fraughtness to intensify. Peter imagined a divorced Charlotte as she got older: a fussy, nervous woman with her work and her things, “wonderful friends,” a penchant for burgundy, good seats for the ballet, travel, special relationships with certain children. She would not experience two relaxed, happy minutes consecutively (except after some of that wine, which would sometimes make her giddy and flirtatious in a way that would set the other dinner guests’ teeth on edge). Good old Charlotte. Could Peter condemn her to this fate?

  The vows you made at the altar, everyone recognized, were not worth the breath you used to say them. And yet, something in Peter made it difficult for him to imagine breaking them. A plan to run off with Holly? It was hopeless and stupid, but it was not only hopeless and stupid. It was wrong. This fact counted quite heavily with Peter. It was like a timbered door secured with thick iron bands and padlocks the size of purses that stood between him and the thing he wanted. It was wrong. It was just wrong. Peter felt no pride in his virtue (if that was what it was). He couldn’t go back on his word, he couldn’t betray Charlotte, he couldn’t hurt her. He just couldn’t.

  Earlier that day, Peter had inalterably resolved, for the ten millionth time, to accept the fact that Holly was not free. Now she was, but Peter was not. He really did believe that the universe had been programmed to bring them together. But it hadn’t happened, had it? Why, why, why? Some zeros and ones in the wrong place? Typical glitch? He understood that it would be asking a lot of the universe to reboot and start all over. Or maybe there was an entirely different explanation—this free-will business. If so, then it was still in his power to make it all work, and maybe he could find a way? Peter turned the facts over in his mind again and again and again, searching, without success, for an interpretation that would reconcile them with his desire.

  After he had been performing this exercise for a few hours, Peter was suddenly overcome with disgust. For God’s sake, what had he been thinking? Pitying himself, becoming carried away with absurd schemes, when all this time he should have thinking about Holly’s suffering. Poor Holly. Poor, poor Holly. How sad, how horrible for her. The horror of Jonathan’s death would crush her heart. Peter imagined Holly with her heart crushed, and it was almost unbearable. It didn’t matter very much that Jonathan was dead: Jonathan deserved wh
atever fate handed him. It didn’t matter very much that Peter’s best friend had died: Peter would get over it. And it didn’t matter very much whether Peter and Charlotte would be happy: they would be happy enough. But what about Holly? She would suffer pain. Real, horrible pain, as if she were being slashed by a dull, serrated knife. Tears began rolling onto Peter’s cheeks. This was love, he thought ruefully, to be devastated by the unhappiness of the beloved on account of your rival’s death. He would have to help her, with no other object but her well-being. He would have to comfort her. He would have to ease her suffering any way he could.

  The window shades glowed and a gray light filled the room. Birds twittered, and a puff of warm, humid air foretold the day to come. Peter rose and stepped over to the bed where Holly was sleeping. She lay cushioned by Mrs. LeMenthe’s soft pillows and linens. Her color had returned, and the red, raw areas around her eyes and nose had faded. Her serene sleeping expression was that of someone without a single care. Peter softly stroked her hair. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

  He lay down on the daybed again. Charlotte had fallen asleep hours before. Janet had fallen asleep, as had David and Deirdre and Dr. Smythe. So, eventually, had Julia, and Dick had lain down beside her and fallen asleep. Mrs. LeMenthe was asleep. Holly was asleep. Now Peter slept too.

  Jonathan was buried three days later in New York. No one could figure out what he had been doing out on the golf course. If he had just wanted to get some air and stretch his legs, why would he go that way? If Isabella had disappeared, Peter might have had his suspicions, but she had remained in view all evening, so he was baffled too. Then the groundskeeper faced a conundrum when, while repairing the turf that the ambulance had damaged, he found one of Jonathan’s patent leather shoes. Even though it had gotten soaked and maybe run over, it didn’t sit right with the groundskeeper just to throw it away, so he gave it to the assistant manager to return, and the assistant manager threw it away.