It frightened her, that she could have such thoughts, but she was angry with Ivan. He had seemed to blame her for getting her period, as if she’d done it deliberately to thwart him. “At least it shows everything is working, anyway,” she had said, to cheer him up. “The fact that I’m so regular, every twenty-eight days, like a machine.”
But that had been a mistake—he took it as blame, an insult to his own fertility. Why hadn’t she seen he would? she had scolded herself, and the thought had immediately followed: why do I always have to tiptoe with him? She was sick of gauging his moods and weighing her words; and, God knew, he was heavy-footed enough with her. She lashed back at him and they had a full-fledged argument, and he had refused to go to Mystic with them. Later, getting ready to leave, she braided the twins’ hair—then, at their insistence, braided her own as well—and wondered whether Ivan had started the quarrel in order to provide himself with an excuse to stay home. She suspected, though they left him out in the yard digging up the vegetable garden, that he had plans of his own that were more interesting than mucking around in the dirt. For once, his broad T-shirted back bent over a pitchfork failed to move her. He didn’t look up to wave when they left, even though Duke honked and the twins yelled good-bye.
“He’s still stewing over the stove business,” Duke said.
“Let him,” Susannah replied, and Duke looked at her in surprise.
With her hair in braids, Susannah felt years younger, not much older than the twins. She kept looking at her long face, reflected in the green Aquarium tanks, crisscrossed by stingrays, piranhas, and sharks. She made faces at her reflection, and hung on to the ends of her braids with her hands, enjoying the gentle tug of her hair against her scalp. The twins called her Rapunzel; they twirled the ends of her braids with their plump hands, and her hair whirred softly past her ears.
Mary Claire, the quieter twin, sat on her lap during the dolphin show, watching soberly while the dolphins jumped through hoops and fetched gold rings and played ball. Only when they barked for fish did she laugh. Mary Grace watched from Duke’s shoulders, closer to the pool, and when the trainer asked for a volunteer to throw the animals a fish she cried, “I will! I will!” nearly falling from her perch, but a little boy in the front row was chosen.
“Boys get everything,” she said over lunch in the cafeteria. “Girls don’t have any luck.”
“That’s not always true,” Duke said. “Look at Susannah. Not only is she a good writer but she has these pretty long pigtails.” He reached out, shyly, to touch one. “I’d say she’s mighty lucky.”
“And three cats,” said Mary Claire.
“That’s not the same as getting picked to throw a fish,” said Mary Grace, unconvinced.
“But it’s pretty good,” said Mary Claire, and took Susannah’s hand.
Susannah and Duke were being vegetarians again, so they had salads for lunch, and afterwards they drove to Stonington, where they wandered up and down the quaint, narrow streets looking for the address of the man with the cash register.
“We could ask someone,” Susannah suggested.
“Never!” said Duke.
“Daddy hates to ask directions,” Mary Grace said.
“It’s a nice day for a walk,” Duke said firmly.
Susannah breathed in deeply. The air tasted clean and salty; the day was cool and full of promise, with a brisk little wind and plenty of sun—weather that was valueless unless it followed a cold winter. “It’s just the kind of day I used to love, and that I missed out in Los Angeles,” Susannah said.
The twins ran on ahead, and when they were out of earshot Duke said to Susannah, “I want to talk to you about something while I’ve got the chance.”
“Oh God, Duke, what?” Not on this perfect day, she felt like saying. She looked desperately at the sun shining on a pink azalea bush, as if it was her last glimpse.
“I probably shouldn’t even mention it,” Duke said. “But I’m getting a little worried about Ivan.”
“How come?” she asked, thinking how she really didn’t want to know. When the wind wasn’t blowing the sun was hot, and she and Duke stopped in the shade of a tree thick with shiny young leaves.
“I don’t think his heart is in this—the restaurant.” He looked at her, frowning in a way that made his pointed nose turn white at the tip. Susannah had on thin-soled sandals; in the hiking boots Duke habitually wore he was just her height. “It’s my fault,” he went on. “I talked him into it because it was what I wanted. What he wanted was to come east. It seemed the perfect setup, but—” He shrugged. “I have to admit now that I had my doubts, but I suppressed them. And I’m beginning to think I’ve gotten us all into something that isn’t going to work out.”
Susannah felt desolated. She remembered how she had doubted, and then become sure. Now here was doubt again. She looked for a place to sit; there was nothing but the curbstone, so she sat down on it, and Duke sat beside her. The twins were petting a cat on someone’s front walk. In the yard was a plaster niche lined with shells, a statue of the Virgin, abundant hyacinths. “But he’s never said he didn’t want to go on with it, Duke. And he’s worked so hard.”
“I know he has, he’s been great, you both have,” Duke said quickly. “But his heart isn’t in it,” he said again. He sighed and looked down at his scarred hands. “He used to want to talk about it all the time—remember? Now he’s not interested. It’s you and I who talk about it—who hang around the place and make plans. Ivan’s always out somewhere.”
“It’s the delay,” Susannah said, but she wondered if she was right. Was it more than that? More than the stove, and restlessness, and wherever he went on his days off? She was scared. If they didn’t run the restaurant with Duke, what would they do? She thought of her father, quietly dying back in California. For this she had left him there alone: for what?
“He hardly talks to us, Susannah. I keep getting the feeling it’s you and me against Ivan, and that’s not right.” He touched her hand lightly. “You’re his wife, I’m his best friend—used to be, anyway. We shouldn’t be allied against him. But it keeps working out that way. Even today—here. Why isn’t Ivan with us?”
“We had a fight.”
“Oh. Well.” Duke was silent. He looked up the street at the twins; they were squatted down on either side of the cat, talking to it. “But there are plenty of other times, Susannah. Almost all the time. Afternoons, nights, Ivan’s out somewhere. You wait—we’ll get home and he’ll be out.” He looked at her, troubled. “Ivan and I used to be such good friends. Even when you two were in California—maybe especially then. I suppose I should think about that. Maybe we get along better when we don’t live in the same town—same house, at least.”
There was another pause. Susannah wore a full black skirt; she looked down at her thin, white shins protruding from her skirt like crutches, covered with a fur of blonde hairs. She tucked her legs beneath her skirt. “Maybe if Ivan and I moved,” she said. “Got an apartment.”
“I’m not trying to get you to move out,” Duke said. “Don’t misunderstand me, Susannah. I don’t really think that’s the trouble. It’s a lot more than that. But it’s also simply that Ivan doesn’t seem to be cut out for the restaurant business.”
“But we’re not even in the restaurant business yet, Duke.”
The twins had moved off down the street, and they got up to follow. The cat accompanied them a way, then abandoned them and trotted off behind a house, tail up. Duke walked in silence, with his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the twins. “No, but …” He looked at Susannah and shook his head. “Hell, he doesn’t even like food, he doesn’t care what he eats or what he eats it off of, he just wants everything cheap and immediate—as if we were running a fast-food joint. He doesn’t understand about quality. He actually suggested we use canned mushrooms when he saw the price of fresh ones.” Susannah smiled, and Duke did too, after a minute. “Oh, I know it sounds ridiculous when you get down to canned mushrooms.�
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“No, it’s not so ridiculous, Duke. I know what you mean. But—”
“I know,” he interrupted her. “If I pulled out now, or you two did, I’d owe you a bundle. Don’t think I’m not aware of that.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.” She paused a moment, stopped walking, and put her hand on his arm. “I was going to say I think you’re wrong about Ivan not being interested in the restaurant. I think he’s as interested in it as he is in anything right now. But he’s got two things on his mind.” She felt herself blush, but she went on. “Getting me pregnant and chasing women.” She laughed self-consciously and removed her hand from his arm, but they continued to stand still on the narrow sidewalk together. “And if you think those two things are incompatible, you don’t know Ivan.”
“Oh, I know Ivan,” Duke said. “I know about the women, too, Susannah.”
Her heart dropped—it was true, then, it was like old times, nothing had changed. Tears came to her eyes, and she became aware that she had cramps and a headache. “That bastard,” she whispered, and Duke drew her to him briefly and let her head rest on his shoulder. Yes, it was a relief, a release, an indulgence, a profound pleasure to stand supported by a trustworthy, sweetsouled man like Duke. The ugly thought that had been circling all these weeks articulated itself in her head: he does it, why shouldn’t I? She imagined going to bed with Duke, his plump, comfortable body, his infinite tenderness. Desire stirred her but she realized, sorrowfully, that it was for Ivan. Infidelity didn’t interest her any more than divorce did—Ivan’s unceasing faithlessness, in fact, puzzled her as much as it hurt.
They stood there a moment on the quiet sidewalk, and then she pulled away with a laugh. “But that’s nothing new. And God knows it doesn’t concern you. I’m sorry I brought it up, Duke. I just wanted to make you understand about Ivan.”
He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t fathom: tenderness? pity? “I’m the one who ought to be sorry, Susannah—laying all this on you. Obviously, it’s much worse for you than it is for me—his absences and all that. God, I’m an insensitive clod.” An elderly couple walked by, hand in hand, and looked curiously at them. Duke tipped his hat and smiled; they smiled hesitantly back and passed on. “And you, on the other hand, are a good writer, and you have those pretty long pigtails. I still think things will come right for you.”
“I hope that’s true,” she said. “I do love him, Duke.” She felt she had to say it, to kill off her trashy fantasies right there. Rapunzel, indeed. She was no princess in a tower, she was a whiny woman married to a philanderer whom she had no intention of leaving—an old story, older than Rapunzel.
Duke nodded and hugged her briefly across the shoulders. She had a sudden whimsical impulse to tell him everything, the story of her life—not just amusing stories about her schools but the bitter, intimate tales she had stored up about her early childhood, her parents’ enmity, her wasted years, her doubts about Ivan—up to and including her twilight drive to Rosie’s and her distasteful fantasies. But she stayed silent, feeling pleasantly self-righteous. Her refusal to be tempted was a point scored off Ivan. She imagined him at that very moment unburdening himself to some nubile teenager. She looked up the street at the elderly, hand-holding couple, talking with their heads close together. But that’s what I want, she said to herself before she ducked out from under Duke’s encircling arm.
They caught up with the twins, who had found an ice-cream parlor. The twins and Duke had cones, Susannah had ginger ale and an aspirin. They sat at a small round table, on wire chairs. Through the window Susannah could see straw poking from behind the grille on a lamppost. As she watched, a sparrow flew to the post, perched, disappeared behind the wire—it was a nest. She pointed it out to the twins, feeling depressed; every damn thing, every last little bird, had babies. She looked enviously at Duke, who ate ice cream with such perfect happiness because he had two—two!—adored children who hung on his words and said “Daddy” in that loving tone of voice. Her stomach hurt. She went to the ladies room to change her Tampax. “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed,” she thought as she flushed the toilet, smiling grimly. She was thinking of Ivan. For a moment—she looked at her braids and her flushed face in the mirror—she felt the bitter desire to keep the pregnancy to herself when it came, not tell Ivan—to pretend to menstruate, cover up morning sickness, suck in her stomach and wear baggy dresses to hide an enlarging waist. The idea cheered her up.
“Rapunzel!” the twins cried when she returned, their round faces beaming, ice cream on their chins.
“Are you all right?” Duke asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I was just thinking I might like a cone after all.”
The twins were overjoyed; they seemed to have inherited from Duke a delight in feeding people, and they insisted on taking the money up to the counter and getting her ice cream themselves. “Pick me out a flavor,” Susannah told them, and they brought back Rocky Road, a flavor she particularly loathed, but she ate it gamely while the twins finished her ginger ale. Ivan receded from her mind, like bad news on the radio. She felt perfectly happy. “Please don’t worry,” she said to Duke. “It’s temporary, this thing with Ivan. Wait till we open, he’ll be all over the place.” He nodded, and took a sip of ginger ale.
The afternoon had clouded over by the time they found Virgil’s Antiques, where the cash register reposed in a lightless back room. Susannah played the minuet from Don Giovanni on a rickety upright piano in one corner of the shop while Virgil and Duke dragged the cash register out where they could see it. Virgil dusted it off with an old undershirt, and they gathered around it. It was a turn-of-the-century brass-plated model, with a raised design of flowers and leaves; the keys were white porcelain with curly black numbers, and it did indeed ring musically when the drawer opened. It was so splendid Duke bought it immediately, without haggling, but it was too big to go into the Volkswagen’s tiny trunk.
“Put it in the back seat,” suggested Virgil. “Let the little ones sit either side of it.”
They tried it, but Duke couldn’t get the twins’ seatbelts to fasten. He shook his head. “I’ll have to come back for it. I don’t let them go without seatbelts.” The twins looked solemn; they knew their mother had died unbelted. “I’ll drive back tomorrow and get it.” He and Virgil lugged the cash register back into the shop.
“Maybe you could come with me, Susannah?” he asked her as they got back into the car.
“I don’t think I’d better, Duke,” she said, giving no reason, thinking of her head on his shoulder. Duke seemed to understand. She half-wished he would press her to go, but he nodded.
“I suppose not.” And then, after a minute, “I didn’t know you played the piano.” He turned his head to give her a grin. “Is there no end to your talents?”
“I only know that one piece. One more relic of my variegated education.” She was silent. It had begun to rain; drops fell from a dull white sky like bits of light. In the distance, farther than they were going, the sky was blue. “I suppose it’s appropriate that I should remember that particular piece. From Don Giovanni.” She had meant it as a joke, but it came out sounding querulous, and when she chuckled to indicate good humor the chuckle sounded forced. She closed her eyes; her cramps had returned, and the heavy, tugging feeling in her womb.
Duke’s rough fingers patted the back of her hand. “Cheer up, Susannah. It’s not that bad.” She looked over at him. “Is it?” he asked. He had eyes the color of sidewalk, a curved scar like a scimitar on one cheek, the beginnings of a double chin. The brim of his squashed-in hat shaded his face.
“No,” she said. “Don’t mind me, Duke. I get melodramatic.” The twins, in the back seat, began to sing “Home on the Range,” their childish voices missing the high notes. Duke joined in—badly off key—with an apologetic smile, and so did Susannah. The happiness she had experienced at the ice-cream parlor returned to her, and she thought to herself—singing as loudly as she could
, to keep the others on pitch—how nice she would be to Ivan, how she would overpower him with kindness when they returned. She would behave as if they’d never had their quarrel, as if she hadn’t enjoyed quite so much her Ivanless day out, as if she hadn’t called him a bastard to Duke, cried on Duke’s shoulder, asked for pity in a thousand little ways, fancied herself a Rapunzel.
But he wasn’t home, of course. He came in late, after she was in bed—but not asleep. She lay still while he undressed and got into bed. He turned his back to her and sighed deeply: a sigh of satisfaction? dejection? fatigue? She didn’t want to know, didn’t want him to discover her wakefulness, and speak to her, and tell lies. She heard him go to sleep—in, out, in—and she turned over, gingerly, feeling her womb nip sharply at her, pulled the sheet to her chin and tried to doze off. But she had nothing to think about, nothing to clear her mind after the miserable hour of waiting for Ivan. She had always, drowsy in bed, enjoyed looking ahead and planning, thinking: next year, next month, on Wednesday I’ll … But that pleasure had been taken from her, or been lost en route from California to Connecticut, and with it her effortless sleep.
Somewhere, not far off, a train was passing. She could hear its hollow, eerie whistle in the dark, and, closer, the patter of rain. Next year at this time … She couldn’t complete the sentence. It used to be the past that wouldn’t bear thinking of; now it was the present as well, and the future. She closed her eyes tightly and thought of her story, of sunlight coming through glass to make a space filled with light that was as thick and frightening as darkness.
The Silvergate Café was jammed on opening day. It opened at 11:00 on Wednesday morning; by 11:15 people were trickling in, and by noon they were waiting in line for tables. Ginger and Ivan dashed from table to table, to the cash register, and back to the serving counter, while Susannah helped Duke in the kitchen. They had filled the long delays with speculations about every contingency and elaborate plans for super-efficiency, absorbing Duke’s lode of learning from the restaurants he had worked in. They even practiced carrying trays and assembling salads. But nothing had prepared them for the chaos—for people who changed their minds, who had to have the menu explained to them, who wanted cucumbers left out of their salads or cream served with their rose hip tea, and who poked their heads into the kitchen with compliments and good-luck wishes. Ginger came into the kitchen at one point, sweaty and disheveled, her green and white checked apron spotted with spills, and said, “Who would have suspected such a craving for rabbit food in these parts? It looks like every vegetarian in southern Connecticut came out of the closet today.” And Ivan burst in, kissed Susannah and clapped Duke on the back, and said, “Fame and fortune—I just hope there’s some more of that broccoli soup in the fridge,” and sprinted out again.
The Garden Path Page 18
