Mendocino and Other Stories Page 13

  “OK,” he says, “talk to me.”

  I turn to face him.

  “Talk to me,” he says, standing up. “Talk to me,” he says, coming toward me, coming closer until there is almost no space between us. “Talk to me,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close.

  But now that we are like this—now that I am almost literally surrounded by him—I can't think of anything that I want to say.

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  “Don't move,” I say.

  HERE I AM again, on Loma Vista. I'm parked right in front of the house, watching the rain run down the car windows. I'm supposed to be buying myself a new dress—Thomas's idea—but I don't really want one.

  I think Alice is in there alone. Either that or no one's home; I saw Carol leave about half an hour ago.

  Go all out, Thomas said. Get something gorgeous. Surprise me. This would surprise him: this waiting, this watching. But he'll never know and what disturbs me is, he might not want to.

  A light goes on in the living room and there's Alice, looking out the window. Is she looking at me? I turn away and stare straight ahead. I count to fifty; very slowly. When I'm done, I look back and she's still there. She raises her hand and waves at me; my heart is pounding. A moment later she opens the front door and comes down the walk, a little red umbrella held open over her head. When she gets to the car she comes around and I roll down my window.

  “Can I help?” she says.

  “Help?”

  “Would you like to use my phone?”

  “Oh,” I say. “I hadn't thought of that.”

  “Come on in,” she says. “You must be freezing.”

  I get out of the car and follow her up the walk, my legs like rubber. When we get inside, she turns around and looks at me, and her face is much younger than I ever imagined. There are wrinkles around her wide-set green eyes, but otherwise her skin is smooth. “I saw you sitting there—oh, it must have been a good hour ago,” she says. “When I looked again just now I couldn't believe you were still there. Car trouble? The phone's through here.” She leads me through the living room to the kitchen. “I'm Alice Mehring, by the way,” she says, putting out her hand.

  “Thank you,” I say, and shake it. She gives me a funny look. “Oh,” I say. “I'm Claire, Claire … Thomas.”

  She looks me over and I think, Now she's going to realize she's let a perfect stranger into her house and she's going to get scared. But she says, “You are cold, aren't you? Would you like some tea?”

  I open my mouth to answer, to say that there's nothing wrong with my car and I don't need the phone and I'd better leave; but nothing comes out.

  “Is that a yes or a no,” she says, laughing. She opens a cupboard. “We've got English Breakfast, which is what I drink, plus about ten kinds of herbal tea my daughter tells me to buy. I don't think she's ever actually tried any of them, but every now and then some new flavor pops up on my grocery list.” She smiles at me. “What'll it be?”

  “English Breakfast, I guess,” I say. “It's so nice of you.”

  “It's nothing. Do you need a phone book?” She opens a drawer. “Help yourself.”

  I take the phone book and sit at the kitchen table. I watch her fill a kettle with water and set it on the stove.

  I can't call home; what would I say to Thomas?

  “Do you need a jump?” she says. “I could call my son-in-law, I'm sure he's got cables.”

  I look up at her. “There's nothing wrong with my car,” I say. To my dismay, tears swim in front of my eyes.

  She puts a hand to her throat and takes a step backward. “No?”

  I shake my head. “I was just sitting there because I, uh—” I shrug my shoulders. My eyes are burning. Tears begin to trail down my cheeks.

  “Are you OK?”

  I nod my head, but I can't speak.

  “Are you sure? Can I—is there anything I can do?” She takes a step toward me, then another, and when she reaches my side she touches my shoulder lightly. “Can I call someone?”

  “I'm sorry,” I say, standing up. “This is terrible.”

  “Please don't worry,” she says. “Here—why don't you sit down.”

  I don't sit, but I don't move, either. It's all I can do to keep the tears back. If I really started, I wouldn't be able to stop.

  A shrill whistle pierces through the kitchen and I gasp.

  “The water,” she says. “I got this ridiculous new kettle.” She moves away from me to the stove. “Claire,” she says. “Have a cup of tea. Sit down again and have a cup of tea.”

  I sit, and a few minutes later, when the tea is in front of me and she is sitting across the table, I begin to feel calmer. I take a sip, and the tea is nice and strong. I reach into my purse for a Kleenex, wipe my eyes, and blow my nose. “I'm really sorry,” I say.

  “It's OK,” she says. “Really.”

  There's a copy of Gourmet on the table and she reaches for it, then begins flipping through the pages. “Do you like to cook?” she says. “I was going to try this recipe, but I don't know, it might be too hard.” She turns the magazine to face me and there's a big, two-page picture of a pastry fish on a silver platter. The fish is beautifully detailed; there are even delicate pastry fins. It's golden brown, like a fragrant loaf of bread just out of the oven. “It's called Coulibiac of Salmon,” she says. “What do you think?”

  I look into her steady green eyes. I think, How do you do it? My God, how do you do it? But I tell her that it looks delicious. “I think you should try it,” I say.

  IT'S DARK AND raining harder when I get home, and our house, light pouring out the big windows, looks warm and inviting. “Thomas,” I call as I open the door. “I'm back.”

  “We're in here,” comes his voice from the study.

  I head in that direction, but stop for a moment at the hall mirror. We bought it in a musty old junk store in Florence, just two days before we were due to fly back to the States and get married. It's a big, unwieldy thing, with a heavy ornate gold frame; when I first saw it leaning against the wall, I was drawn to it without quite knowing whether I thought it was ugly or beautiful. The man who ran the shop was at my side in a second. “Signora,” he said. “Bello, no? You have a very good taste, no? This is very old, very antique. Of the 18th century.” Thomas came over to see what was going on, and the man said, “Your lady love she has a good taste. You want to make her happy I give you for three hundred thousand lire, very good price.”

  “Oh,” I said, “that's too much.”

  “I kind of like it,” Thomas said. He moved closer to the mirror and bent over to examine the finish. “It's in pretty good shape,” he said. “It's just a little dusty.”

  “It's a treasure,” the man said, pulling a rag from his pocket and wiping the frame off. “Two hundred eighty thousand lire, I'm giving it to you, you understand? A gift.”

  Thomas grasped the sides of the mirror and tried to lift it. “It weighs a ton,” he said. “We'd have to ship it.”

  “It gives a beautiful picture,” the man said. “Look at this.” He leaned over and with a grunt lifted the mirror up so that our faces were reflected in it together. “A beautiful picture,” he said again.

  We looked at ourselves for a moment, and I whispered, “Shall we get out of here?”

  But Thomas kept looking, until I was afraid the man would drop the mirror. “Two hundred fifty thousand lire,” came the man's voice. “And I ship it for you free.”

  “OK,” Thomas said, “sold.” And when I turned to him in surprise, he shrugged and smiled. “You like it, don't you?” he said. He pointed at our reflections. “Don't you want to see what happens to the beautiful picture?”

  Looking at the mirror now, it occurs to me that that was barely half a year ago: I haven't even given the picture time to change.

  “Claire?” Thomas calls.

  I take my comb from my purse and run it through my hair. “Coming,” I call back.

  W
hen I reach the study doorway I stop, and there they are—Thomas sitting at his desk; Jenny on the rug behind his chair, three or four stuffed animals grouped around her. “Hi,” I say.

  He looks up at me and smiles, then swivels his chair around and picks Jenny up. He stands her on his thighs so that they're both facing me, their heads together. “Who's that?” he says, his mouth close to her ear. “Who's that?”

  THREE OF THE plates from their wedding china were chipped. Their narrow West Village backyard, a tangle of old bricks and weeds when they moved in, was full of flowers. They'd been married for five years and they wanted to have a baby, but it wasn't working.

  “Sometimes it's just not meant to be,” said Julia's doctor.

  But they kept trying. They rushed home at lunch; they'd heard something about daytime body temperatures. They tried a variety of positions; they'd heard something about angle of projection. They went back to the doctor.

  “Don't think in terms of fault,” he said. “It could be any number of things.”

  There was a possibility of finding out what was wrong, though, so they had to try. They brought home glass tubes with little cork stoppers; they purchased a new thermometer, a plastic one with a tiny telephone cord attached to a box with a digital readout; they set up a program on Henry's home computer to keep track of all the variables. Julia thought the program should be called simply “Baby,” but Henry persuaded her to go along with his idea, “Conception Conundrum.”

  Julia was past her prime, reproductively speaking; they already knew that. The news was that Henry's sperm count was very low.

  “Oh, well,” Julia said. “We tried.”

  But walking through Central Park, or standing on a street corner waiting for a traffic light to change, Henry would see her stealing looks into other people's baby carriages and strollers: at tiny newborns in white crocheted jackets, at stout overall-clad toddlers with blond curls. Her lips slightly parted, she would bring her narrow fingers to her mouth, as if, Henry thought uneasily, to keep herself from crying out.

  They stopped talking about it. Instead—instead, Henry marveled, as if there could be a replacement—instead, they toyed with the idea of going to Spain in October, of a new kitchen, of a time-share condo somewhere near the water.

  Then Julia's sister, Mindy, called from Seattle. She said that Henry should get on the extension. “I know you guys are going to want to say no,” she said, “but just listen.” Her baby-sitter was pregnant and it was going to ruin the poor girl's life unless a suitable solution could be found. She was Catholic, so forget an abortion, and in any case it was too late—she was already five months. She'd kept it a secret from everyone until Mindy had come upon her crying in the kitchen just the night before. Out it had all come: the father was hopeless, some kid from another school, and Mindy thought the girl's parents would ultimately forgive her—the same thing had happened to her older sister—but she couldn't live under their roof while it was going on.

  “Mindy,” Julia said.

  “Just wait,” Mindy said. “Don't be so quick.” The girl wanted to find a good couple, a couple who couldn't have children of their own, to adopt the baby from her. She wouldn't ever want to see it, once she'd made sure of them. She was only sixteen, she wasn't ready for anything like the responsibility; and besides, Mindy said, she was very bright, she deserved a chance.

  “I'm getting off now,” Henry said. He waited, but neither Julia nor Mindy said anything, so he hung up. He went into his study, sat on the couch, and stared at the blank screen of the television.

  He looked up when he heard Julia. She stopped in the doorway.

  “God,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Mindy wants her to come live with us? Until the baby's born? Then she'd leave and it would stay?”

  “And we'd adopt it,” Julia said.

  “That's not even legal.”

  “Actually it is. You know Mindy—she made sure of that. It's called open adoption.”

  He looked back at the television set. He could see his head reflected on the screen, a dark shape in the dark grey square. He turned back to Julia; she was leaning against the frame of the door, playing with a button on her sweater.

  “You're not tempted, are you?” he said.

  She shook her head, then came and sat on the couch, leaving a full foot between them. They sat still for a few minutes, not talking. Then she reached over and touched his shoulder. “One good thing would be that she lives all the way across the country,” she said. “We wouldn't have to worry about running into her at the A & P.”

  SYLVIE ARRIVED ON the first of September. She was six months pregnant, but she was a big girl, the baby aside. Henry was a big man—six foot two and on the soft side of two hundred pounds—and he kept looking at her, amazed by her shoulders, her wrists. She had long, unruly hair the color of pumpkin pie, and milky skin. Standing next to Julia in the kitchen before dinner, she made Julia—sleek, raven-haired Julia—look unreal somehow.

  At the table Sylvie smiled a lot and politely answered their questions. Henry felt impatient, until he realized why: he was waiting for her to talk about the baby. Not about how it felt, being pregnant; those were the things they'd never know. And they'd already gone over all the details—her maternity clothing allowance, their religious and financial lives. He wanted—what? For her to say, “This is strange, but I think it will work out.” He looked across the table at Julia. She looked the way she looked just before they fought.

  For dessert she had made zabaglione, to serve with fresh berries. (“As if I wanted to impress her,” she'd said to Henry as they left for the airport; “I know,” he'd said, “I thought about having the car waxed.”) After the first bite, Sylvie put her spoon down.

  “It's zabaglione,” Julia said. “Maybe it's an acquired taste.”

  “No, it's good,” Sylvie said. “It's just—is there some kind of liquor in it?”

  Henry and Julia exchanged a look. “Marsala,” Julia said.

  “It's a kind of wine,” Henry said. “Although you wouldn't really want to drink it like wine.”

  Sylvie nodded but didn't eat any more.

  “Maybe you don't like wine yet,” he said.

  “Oh, I like it,” she said. “But in my condition—”

  “Oh, God,” Julia said, “I wasn't thinking. Is it really true that you can't have any alcohol?”

  “That's ridiculous,” Henry said. “I'm sure my mother didn't give up her vodka martinis for me, and I turned out OK.” He looked into his dessert bowl and very carefully maneuvered exactly one raspberry onto his spoon. “More or less.”

  “Actually,” Sylvie said, “there really is a link between low birth weights and alcohol intake during pregnancy.”

  “You're right to be careful,” Julia said. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “True,” said Henry. “Although I don't think a little zabaglione could hurt anyone.”

  When they finished eating, Sylvie stood up and began clearing the table.

  “Please don't,” Julia said.

  “You're a guest,” Henry said.

  Sylvie ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it from her face. “There's no such thing as a four-month guest,” she said. “Anyway, I'm used to it—it's my job at home.”

  “You've had a long day,” Julia said. “Tomorrow we'll figure out how you can help.”

  “OK,” Sylvie said, but she didn't move, and Henry found himself staring at the table to avoid looking at her. He wished Julia would get her to go upstairs.

  “Do you remember where your room is?” Julia said.

  “Oh, yes. It's just, well, I wanted to thank you for having me.”

  “Of course,” Julia said. “It's we who should thank you.”

  Henry stayed where he was while Julia came and went, carrying plates and glasses. When she'd finished in the kitchen, she turned off the light, and the whole downstairs, except for the dining room, was dark. She came and stood behind
him, leaning down and putting her arms around his neck until their heads were close. He opened his mouth to say something, he hadn't decided what. “Don't,” she said.

  “HOW ABOUT GOING out for dinner tonight?” Henry said. “Just the two of us.” He was at his office, talking to Julia at her office. They talked more these days, but about less. They talked about whether there was enough milk at home; they tried to think of movies Sylvie might like for the VCR. She had been with them for nearly three weeks.

  “Henry,” Julia said. “Remember Sylvie?”

  “Just an idea.”

  “I'll make you something special tonight,” she said. “What would you like?”

  He twisted the phone cord around his finger. “Do you think she's bored?”

  “Lonely, maybe,” Julia said. “Not bored.”

  “She barely leaves the house, except to go swimming.”

  “She's busy.”

  “What, watching TV?”

  “Growing the baby.”

  “If it were you, you'd be working nine to six on top of that.”

  “But it's not me.”

  There was nothing he could say to that. He told her someone was standing at his door, and he hung up. Five minutes later he called her back.

  “I do feel bad,” he said.

  “Honey, we don't know it was you—it could have been me. I'm thirty-six, after all.”

  A tiny circle of pain moved into his chest, like a stitch in his side when he was walking fast. “I meant I feel bad for Sylvie.”

  Julia was silent.

  “Jule?” He saw her at her desk, fingering the framed picture of him that she kept there. She'd taken it just a few weeks after they met at a wedding; she'd called him on a Sunday morning and suggested a walk. It was autumn, and she was wearing caramel-colored leather gloves and carrying her camera on a strap over her shoulder. She took his arm, and he had a barely perceptible feeling that she thought he was someone different from who he actually was: someone who knew how to have a woman on his arm. In the picture his expression, she always says, is one of ill-concealed boredom; she says it's part of why she fell in love with him—that no one else ever permitted himself to look bored in her presence. He'd actually felt uneasy, and now, waiting for her to speak, he wondered whether, as she looked at the picture, she was finally seeing some truth about him that had eluded her before—that he was cruel, stupid. “Julia?” he said.