“What do you say we get dressed and find some breakfast, then go out to the house and pick up the gifts.”
“I'm starved. I never did finish my dinner last night.”
“And you're not the only one who's hungry?” He dropped his gaze briefly to her stomach. She was contouring it with both hands.
“No, I'm not.”
“Then let me buy you both breakfast.”
She colored and turned away, realizing she liked the morning Clay.
When the shower was splattering away she dropped down onto the bed again, fell back supine in the sun, thinking of how different Clay seemed this morning. She even enjoyed his teasing. She heard the bar of soap drop, then a muffled exclamation, then light whistling again. She remembered him turning from that window with those coolielike pajamas hanging so tentatively low on his hips, and the thin line of red-gold hair sparkling its way down the center of his stomach. She groaned and rolled over and cradled her face in the L of an arm and the sun crept over her in warm fingers of gold and she fell asleep, waiting there that way, as pregnant women are prone to do.
He came into the bedroom wearing pajama bottoms and a towel slung around his neck. He smiled at the sight that greeted him. She lay there sprawled luxuriously and he studied the way the yellow fabric followed the contours of her shoulders, back, buttocks, the one knee drawn up, the other with its bare foot dangling over the edge of the bed.
In daylight, he decided, she was much more amiable. He'd enjoyed their little repartee upon waking.
He looked around, spied the roses, nabbed one and began tickling the sole of her foot with it. The toes curled tight, then the foot rotated on the ankle irritably. Then it kicked him in the knee and she laughed into the bedclothes.
“Cut it out,” she scolded, “I told you I'm not at my best in the morning. I have an ugly disposition until almost noon.”
“And here I was thinking how nice you were before.”
“I'm a bear.”
“What are you doing here? You're supposed to be getting ready for breakfast.”
She looked at him with one cheek and an eye lost in the blankets.
“I was just catching a catnap.”
“A catnap—when you just got up?”
“Well, it's your fault.”
“Oh, yeah? What'd I do now?”
“Dunce. Pregnant ladies tend to sleep a lot, I told you that before.” She reached backward and waggled her fingers. “Gimme.”
He put the rose in her hand, and she sniffed it—one deep, long exaggerated pull—then rolled over and said to the ceiling, “Morning has broken.” And without another word went to bathe and dress.
Catherine could see that her greatest adversary was normalcy. Clay, being well-adjusted, intended to forge ahead as if their marriage were ordinary. But she, herself, was constantly on guard against the compelling gravity of the commonplace. That first day gave her glimpses of what life with Clay could be like if things were different.
They arrived at the Forresters' through the high sun of the November afternoon which had melted away all but a few hints of last night's snows. The doorman was gone now—it was just an ordinary house again. Squirrels, much the color of the lawns, chittered and chased, still on the search for winter stores. A nuthatch darted from one of the festoons beside the door where it had been dining on bearded wheat.
And as it always could, the home welcomed.
They caught Claiborne and Angela nestled together on the loveseat like a pair of mated mallards while the Minnesota Vikings radiated from the screen. There were the inevitable touches of greeting, in which Catherine was now included. They opened most of the gifts together—the four of them—with time out for instant replays, and for teasing Catherine about her ignorance of the game. Sitting on fat pillows on the floor, Catherine and Clay laughed over a grotesque cookie jar that looked like it belonged in a Swahili kitchen instead of an American town house. And she learned that Clay's favorite cookies were chocolate chip. They opened a waffle iron and she learned that he preferred pancakes. Halftime highlights came on and she learned he disliked the Chicago Bears. Angela made sandwiches and Claiborne said, “Here, open this one next,” with a surprising giddiness, now that the game was over.
And amid a mound of used wrappings Catherine felt herself being sucked into the security of this family.
In the late afternoon they piled their loot into the cars and drove to the place they'd now call home. She met Clay at the door and watched as he set down his load and bent to put the key in the lock. Her arms were full of gift boxes overflowing with excelsior, and she peered around, watching him pocket the key.
The door swung open and before she knew what was happening he had turned and deftly scooped up the whole works—wife, excelsior, boxes and all.
“Clay!”
“I know, I know. Put me down, right?”
But she only laughed while he floundered, acting like his legs had turned to rubber, and collapsed onto the steps with her in his lap.
“In the movies somehow the wife never has a paunch,” he teased, leaning his elbows back on the steps behind them.
She scowled, called him a very nasty name, then felt herself being pushed from his lap. “Get off me, paunchy.”
The apartment lay steeped in late afternoon dusk, silent, waiting. As they stood surveying the living room, it seemed to beckon with the intimacy of a lover about to shed her clothes: new furniture, still wearing tags and dust wrappers, waited—stacked, leaning, unassembled. Lamps with their bases encased in padding lay upon the davenport while their shades waited on the floor in plastic sleeves. Barstools and tables stood about. Pieces of bed frame lay beside the mattress and the box spring leaned against the wall. Boxes and suitcases which they'd brought earlier were stacked on the counter, strewn about the room.
The moment held a poignance that took away their laughter and made them wistful for a moment. It all seemed so ironically like the real thing. The reflection of sunset slipped its lavender fingers through the broad expanse of glass, lending an unearthly glow to the place. Catherine felt Clay's hands on her shoulders. She turned to find him startlingly close behind her, his jaw almost colliding with her temple as she swung around.
“Your coat?” he said. She thought there was a tortured expression about his mouth, wondered if he were thinking of Jill Magnusson. But—just that quick—he removed it and in its place was a grin.
They changed into blue jeans and sweatshirts and set to work—she in the kitchen, he in the living room. Again the air of normalcy returned. For Catherine it was like playing house, working away in this place that seemed too good to be true, packing away wedding gifts in the cupboards, listening to the sounds of Clay shoving furniture around. As they worked, evening spun in, and at times she allowed the line between reality and fantasy to blur.
“Come and tell me where you want the davenport,” Clay called. She got up from her knees and went to ponder with him, and they arranged the room together.
And once she went laughing, asking, “What in the world do you suppose this thing is?” displaying some odd piece of steel that might have been either sculpture or a meat grinder. They laughingly agreed that it must be a sculpture of a meat grinder and relegated it to a hidden spot behind the tissue box on top of the refrigerator.
And dusk was deep when he appeared in the kitchen, asking, “Are there any lightbulbs anywhere?”
“Shove that box over here; I think it's stuff from the shower.”
They found bulbs. A few moments later, still on her knees, she saw lamplight appear over the peninsula of cabinets from the direction of the living room, and smiled when she heard him say, “There, that's more like it.”
She'd finished most of the kitchen unpacking and was lining the linen closet shelves as he passed through the hall, carrying pieces of clanging bed rail.
“Watch the wall!” she warned . . . too late. The bed rail dug into the door frame. He shrugged and disappeared with his burden.
Next he came through with the headboard, then with a toolbox from his trunk. She began unpacking linens, listening to the sounds coming from the bedroom. She was hanging up new towels in the bathroom when he called, “Catherine, can you come here a minute?”
He was on his knees, trying to hold the headboard and bed rails at right angles while he tightened nuts and bolts—and having one hell of a time.
“Hold that up, will you?”
His hair was messed and curling across his forehead while he concentrated on his work. Holding the metal rails, she felt the vibrations wriggle their way to her palms as he plied the screwdriver.
He finished, and the thing was a square. He put the cross-slats in and stood up, saying, “I'll need a little help getting the mattress up the stairs.”
“Sure,” she said, uncomfortable now.
On their way up the steps with their ungainly cargo, Clay warned, “Now, just guide it, don't lift it.”
She wanted to say, don't be solicitous, but bit her tongue.
And then the bed was a bed, and the room grew quiet. They looked across the short expanse—his hair all ascatter and hers slipping free of the combs with which she'd carelessly slung it behind her ears. He had sweat rings beneath his arms and she had a dust smudge on the end of her right breast. His eyes dropped down to it fleetingly.
“There,” he announced, “you can take over from here, okay?”
The new, bare mattress made them both uneasy.
“Sure,” she said with affected brightness, “what color sheets would you like? We've got pink with big white daisies or beige with brown stripes or—”
“It doesn't matter,” he interrupted, leaning to pick up a screwdriver and drop it in the toolbox. “Make it up to suit yourself. I'll be sleeping out on the davenport.”
Catherine was brushing her palms off against one another, and they suddenly fell still. Then he swung from the room. She stood a moment, staring at nothing, then she kicked their brand new box spring and left a black shoe mark on it. She stared at the mark, hands in her jeans pockets. She apologized to the box spring, then took back the apology, then spun and dropped down onto the edge of the unmade bed, suddenly feeling like crying. From the living room came the sound of some bluesy music with soft piano and a husky female voice as he started up the stereo. Finally she quit her moping and made up the bed with crisp, fresh sheets, then decided to put her clothing into the new dresser drawers. She stopped with her hands full of sweaters, and called, “Clay?”
But apparently he couldn't hear her above the music.
She padded silently down the carpeted hall, down the few steps to the living room and found him standing, cowboylike, feet astraddle, thumbs hooked up in his rear pockets, staring out the sliding glass doors.
“Clay?”
He started and looked around. “What?”
“Is it okay if I take the dresser and you take the chest of drawers?”
“Sure,” he said tonelessly, “whatever you want.” Then he turned back to the window.
The inside of the dresser drawers smelled of new, spicy wood. Everything in the place was so spanking, so untouched, so different from what Catherine was used to. She was struck again with a sense of unreality, simply because of the inanity of what she was doing. But when Catherine considered where she was and what lay around her, she felt as if she were usurping someone else's rightful place, and again the image of Jill popped up.
The sound of a drawer opening brought her from her reverie, and she glanced over her shoulder to find Clay also putting his things away. They moved about the bedroom, doing their separate chores, silent except for an occasional excuse me when their proximities warranted. She snapped on the closet light to find he'd brought his hanging clothes over sometime during the week. All his sport coats hung neatly spaced, shirts squarely centered on their hangers, pantlegs meticulously flush and creased. She'd somehow imagined that Inella took care of his clothing, kept it flawless and groomed, and was surprised to find such neat precision all his doing.
The scent he wore lingered in the enclosure, much as it did in his car. She snapped out the light again and turned with her handful of hangers.
“I guess I'll take the closet in the other bedroom if it's okay with you.”
“I can push my stuff closer together.”
“No, no, it's okay. The other closet's empty anyway.”
When she disappeared into the room across the hall, he stared into the drawer he'd been filling in the bureau—contemplating.
A short time later their paths crossed in the living room. Clay was occupied putting away his tapes.
“Listen, are you hungry?” Catherine asked. “We didn't have supper or anything.” It was nearly ten P.M.
“Yeah, a little.” He continued his sorting, never glancing up.
“Oh, well . . . gee,” she stammered, “there's nothing here. We could—”
“Just forget it then. I'm really not very hungry.”
“No, we could go out and get a hamburger or something.”
He looked up at her stomach. “Oh, you're probably hungry.”
“I'm okay.”
He sighed, dropped a tape back into the cardboard box where it clacked before the room fell silent. He stared at it, kneeling there with the heels of his hands on his thighs, then shook his head in slow motion. “Aren't we even going to eat together?”
“You're the one who said first you were hungry, then you weren't.”
He looked up at her squarely. “Do you want a hamburger?”
She rubbed her stomach with a timorous smile. “Yes, I'm starved.”
“Then what do you say we stop playing cat and mouse and go out and get one.”
“Okay.”
“Let's leave the rest of this stuff for tomorrow night.”
“Gladly, and tomorrow I'll get some groceries in the house.”
And with that everything seemed better.
The illusion lasted till bedtime. Then, again, they walked on eggshells.
Coming in after their late supper she hurried to remove her coat before he could help her, afraid lest he should inadvertently touch her. He followed her to the living room.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Yes, I didn't know how hungry I was. We did a lot of work today.”
Then they couldn't think of anything else to say. Clay began an exaggerated stretch, twisting at the waist with his elbows in the air.
Panic hit her and made her stomach twitch. Should she simply exit or offer to make up his bed or what?
They both spoke at once.
“Well, we have to get up—”
“Should I get your—”
She flapped her hands nervously, gestured for him to speak, but he gestured for her to speak at the same time.
“I'll get your bedding,” she got out.
“Just show me where it is and I'll do it myself.”
She avoided his eyes, led the way up the steps to the linen closet. When she started to reach up high he hurriedly offered, “Here, I'll get them down.”
He moved too quickly and bumped into her back before she could move aside. He nearly pulled the comforter down on her head. She plucked a package of sheets and another of pillowcases from the shelves and put them on top of the comforter in his arms.
“I saved the brown and beige ones for you.”
Their eyes met briefly above the bedding.
“Thanks.”
“I'll get your pillow.” She fled to do so.
But they had only two pillows, which were both on the kingsize bed, already encased in pink-flowered pillow slips. There was some sticky hesitancy as she returned with one, saying she guessed he wouldn't need that other pillowcase she'd given him. And then everything went wrong at once because he reached to take her pillow and the comforter tipped sideways and the plastic-wrapped packages slipped off the top and she lunged to try to catch them and somehow their fingers touched and the whole pile of bedding ended up on the floor at the
ir feet.
He knelt down quickly and began gathering it up while she scuttled back to the security of the bedroom, shut the door and was about to begin changing into her nightgown when he came back for his pajamas. He knocked politely, and she let him pass before her to go in and get them, then shut the door again as he left.
By the time she donned her nightgown her stomach was in knots.
She sat down on the end of the bed, waiting for him to go in and use the bathroom first. But apparently he was sitting downstairs waiting for her to do the same thing. Naturally, they both decided to make the move at once. She was halfway down the hall and he was halfway up the steps when they spied each other headed in the same direction. Catherine's feet turned to stone, but Clay had the presence of mind to simply turn around and retreat. Afterward she closed herself into the bedroom again, climbed into the vast bed and lay there listening to the sounds that the walls couldn't quite hide, picturing Clay in those pajama bottoms as he'd been that morning. The toilet flushed, the water ran, she heard him spit after brushing his teeth.
In the bathroom, Clay studied her wet washcloth hanging on the towel rack, then opened the medicine chest to find her wet toothbrush inside. He laid his next to it, then picked up a bottle of prenatal vitamins, studied its label thoughtfully and returned it to the shelf.
She heard the bathroom light snap off, then he knocked gently on her door.
“Catherine?”
Heart clamoring, she answered, “What?”
“What time do you usually get up?”
“Six thirty.”
“Did you set an alarm?”
“No, I haven't got one.”
“I'll wake you at six thirty then.”
“Thank you.”
She stared at the hole in the dark where the door would be if she could see it.
“Good night then,” he said at last.
“Good night.”
He put on a tape and the sound of the music filtered through the dark, through her closed door while she tried to erase all thought from her mind and find sleep.
Separate Beds Page 26
