Parts Unknown

Chapter 15





Our world consisted of the bed, and the kitchen. It was surprising how inventive two people could be in such a limited space.

Friday morning, as we lay twisted up in the rumpled sheets, Josh told me about Santa Fe. “There’s a mountain right outside the city. Great skiing in the winter. But in the fall, if you go up at just the right time, all the aspen trees on that mountain—they’re bright yellow. Just golden leaves, as far as the eye can see. It’s magical. I’ll drive up there some days, and just sit there for hours, watching the leaves rustling in the trees.” He turned toward me, and added, “Painting groups—they come there sometimes. They set up their easels—like your French easel. And paint the trees.”

“I’d like that,” I murmured.

“Santa Fe is like heaven for artists, anyway. You can’t help but be inspired. Just walking through the galleries on Canyon Road, you’d probably get a million ideas. And the Indians who sell their jewelry on the Plaza downtown—you get to talking to some of them, a whole new bunch of ideas just opens up. It’s like the intersection of worlds, Santa Fe. All different cultures mingling together, and what comes out is like nothing you’ve seen anywhere else.”

“Tell me about the sky,” I requested, snuggling against him.

“It’s so big, baby. It’s so big and open—like this big blue bowl protecting the world. Not like here in LA, where you can only see little bits of it here and there. And it’s never really dark, in LA—all the city lights give the sky this scummy yellow tinge, even in the middle of the night. But in Santa Fe—you can see the stars. The sky’s just thick with them. If you came . . .” he hugged me close, “You’d never want to leave.”

He could sweep me off my feet just like that. I was one big puddle of melted chocolate inside. I tried to ignore the tiny voice in my head squeaking warnings. But time was running out. I had to say something.

“Josh.” I leaned up on one elbow. “Why did you stay, really?”

He blinked. “For you, of course.”

“You know what I mean. What did you want, out of this week?” I felt blindingly angry, all at once, all the buried thoughts and questions I’d carefully hidden away suddenly escaping. “Was it like some college reunion for us, or something?” I asked. “You f*ck me for a week, then you go back home and we send each other family photo cards at Christmas?”

He scowled. “That’s rude.”

“Well, ’cause here’s the thing. I’m not that person—the person who cheats on her husband. This is something I never would have done unless it was with you. You know that, right?”

“Of course! That’s because we have something amazing! That’s what makes it worth the risk—I totally agree!” he exclaimed. I noticed he didn’t say that he hadn’t cheated before. I noticed that he didn’t say what would happen after he left next week.

Josh was the only person with whom I’d ever felt compelled to lay out all my emotions, bare, in front of him. And I was so circumspect with George—George, who gave me all the security Josh never had. So I said, achingly, each word a struggle to speak: “Josh, you’re my soulmate. And you’re my inspiration. You’re everything to me.”

He kissed the top of my head. “You’re mine too,” he whispered into my hair, and I knew he was telling the truth, but at the same time promising nothing.

“So, now what?” I asked. It seemed perfectly obvious: if two people were meant to be together, then they had to find a way to make it work.

“It’s complicated,” he said slowly, getting up and turning his back to pull on his boxers. I lay there naked, pale, vulnerable, just like always. But it was funny—here I thought I was the weak one, but perhaps I was stronger than him. After all these years, he still wouldn’t stand up to his family, leave his wife, compromise his religion. Did he really have such courage in his convictions? Or was he just a scared kid, still craving his Daddy’s love? I knew him more intimately than anyone, but I knew him only from the inside out—his soul, his body, but not his mind. He was an island, over a sea I could never cross.

“We’ll talk about it Monday,” he said finally. He leaned to kiss me and I realized I was dismissed. I stood, alert, and pulsing. I was starting to understand a few things I’d intentionally forgotten before.

After preschool, Astrid accosted me outside. “Guess what!” she yelled. “I asked Ethel about that guy you were talking about, and good news—he was your brother in a past life! That’s the connection!” Ethel was Astrid’s spirit guide. She had died at the age of twelve, in 1914, and she’d chat with Astrid on occasion. Moms picking up their kids gave Astrid a wide berth. This was why there wasn’t much competition to be Astrid’s friend.

“Can you keep it down?” I hissed.

“Why? Oh hey, did you get in touch with him or anything?”

“No!” I exclaimed, too vehemently. “Of course not. Geez—that would be totally unlike me. Not to mention unfair to George.”

“Good,” Astrid said.

“How was San Diego?” I asked her as an afterthought.

“Oh—we didn’t go—didn’t you get my message? Mario got this 24 hour stomach flu on Friday night. I was worried that he might have given it to Lucy, so I called on Saturday, but George said you were out. Anyhow, he was fine by Sunday, but we couldn’t get down to San Diego in time. Too bad.”

“Lucy was fine. Thanks for checking though. I’ve gotta go. Bye, Astrid,” I said abruptly, putting two and two together. The flowers. The drawn looks on George’s face. His distraction. He guessed something was up.

Well, why didn’t he just say something? I suppose, in our little family, just like in my family growing up, if you didn’t say something, it didn’t exist. If you covered it up, if you didn’t speak about it, if you just went about every day as if it were perfectly normal, then maybe it would be. Maybe everything would be just fine.

“Wait!” Astrid called as I rushed toward the parking lot.

I turned in mid-flight. “I need to . . . I’ll call you soon, okay?”

It was hard for her to run in the mile-high platform heels she was wearing, but she caught up with me as I searched desperately through my always cluttered purse for my car keys. “Is he worth it?” she demanded. “That London guy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stalled, finding the keys and yanking open the passenger door.

“You haven’t let me in, after all these years. As far as I can tell you never let anyone in, all the way. You’ve saved it all for him, haven’t you? So I want to know. Is he worth it?”

I lifted Lucy into her car seat and fumbled with the belt.

“I think so,” I near-whispered.

“Even with everything you have to give up?”

I turned to face her. “If I give anything up,” I said, “It won’t be for him. It’ll be for me.” I hugged my friend. “It’s going to be a big mess, but I need to do this. He started something I can’t back out of now.”

She sighed, pushing her luxuriant curls out of her eyes. “I would never have thought you’d be a magnet for trouble.”

“It’s always the quiet ones,” I suggested.

“Hey, I’ll miss you, girl,” she said, digging into her purse. “Here, this is for you.” She thrust a shiny pink vibrator at me. “They gave me some free samples.”

“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “What makes you think I’ll need this, anyhow?”

“You never know.” She winked, hugged me, and was off, teetering across the parking lot in those impractical sandals, her hair glittering in the sunlight.

I drove home and put Lucy to bed, rubbing her back for the longest time till she fell asleep. Then I lay down next to her and curled myself around her little body, seeking warmth and oblivion that didn’t come. When she woke up, I carried her to my bedroom, reached into the depths of my dresser, and pulled out those old hacky sacks. That crumpled paper bag still had a faint whiff of London about it, a last dusting of magic. “Want to learn to juggle?” I asked her.

“What’s juggle?” she asked.

“It’s like this.” I tossed two balls from hand to hand, practicing. “You try to keep three balls going in the air. See, it’s easy with two.” I showed her how I could throw one ball while catching the other. “But three—that’s the trick. I never could figure it out. Wanna try?”

She grabbed a ball and bounced it from hand to hand. She couldn’t manage to throw the second one, but she had fun trying. The little sacks would drop and roll all over, and Lucy looked like a puppy, her butt sticking up in the air trying to fetch them out from under the sofa.

We shouldn’t be playing ball in the living room, packed as it was with cosseted orchids in porcelain containers. I still couldn’t get that third ball to fall into place. As soon as I added it in, the balls would fly everywhere. One hit an orchid and toppled it, scattering planting medium everywhere. Thankfully it was just your basic cymbidium, not an orchid show contender.

“Mommy, you’re no good at this,” Lucy observed. I tossed a ball at her, and she ducked, giggling, and I tickled her for a while. But all afternoon, I kept looking at my hands, miming the up-and-down motion of juggling. What was it, really, that kept the balls in the air?

~ ~ ~

I couldn’t stay focused all weekend; I was guilty, miserable, and grouchy. I had to spend Saturday and Sunday with George and Lucy, as we always did, and all I wanted was to be with Josh. But seeing him that weekend was impossible without arousing all kinds of suspicion. After Astrid’s revelation, coming up with more fake “lunches” with friends was out of the question. George had said nothing. Fine—if he wasn’t going to bring it up, I wasn’t either. How could he act so calm when he knew? Being with me, every day, suspecting infidelity, and he didn’t say a damn thing. The man had an iron will. Sitting together on the sofa, reading the paper, watching TV, brushing our teeth together in the bathroom, we spoke pleasantly, politely, everything just the same as always. I couldn’t stand it, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t say anything. Keeping all my options open, just in case, and hating myself for it.

On Saturday morning George and I took Lucy to Roxbury Park, a perennial weekend haunt. I sucked down my oversized Starbucks coffee as fast as possible, standing under the shade of the big nearby oak while George helped Lucy climb the plastic rope ladder, willing the caffeine to transport me to a different frame of mind. I was dying for a cigarette, but this wasn’t the time or the place. George didn’t even know I was still smoking; I always brushed my teeth after, and washed any clothes I’d been wearing while I’d been guiltily puffing on the balcony. See—I was duplicitous, through and through.

We went through the motions all morning. After the park, I napped while Lucy did, just so I didn’t need to be alone with George. I’d refused to make love with him the night before, and he hadn’t said a word, just turned his back to me and started breathing deeply and evenly far too soon to have actually fallen asleep. I’d never said no before; never changed a piece of the routine we were all so dependent on. But if he didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t need to be fixed.

How ridiculous was that, to think how desperately I’d searched out change when really I’d ended up just like my parents: keeping secrets, not voicing anything worth talking about. It would have been so much easier if I’d kept things that way. If I’d allowed the days to keep dripping one into the other in an endless stream, so that looking over them you couldn’t differentiate one day from the next, one year from the next, forever. At least that way, I’d have remained both honest and safe. Now I was neither.

Instead, I was ready. No matter what happened with Josh, my life couldn’t remain the same. My fingers tingled, itching to hold a brush the way they’d longed before to pour glass after glass of wine at night. No more Pottery Barn Kids catalogs and aimless evenings waiting for something to change. I could take a small step toward a different life, bringing my paint box along with me. And Lucy. Always Lucy.

~ ~ ~

Mom called on Sunday morning, just like always. I’d found myself lingering near the phone near 10 a.m., rehearsing in my mind what I would say; wondering how she would react.

“Hi Mom, how’s it going?”

“Oh, the spring planting is killing me. I bought about thirty new perennials at SummerWinds nursery last weekend, if you can believe it. And they didn’t have the variety of yarrow I’ve been wanting—it’s called Moonbeam, and it’ll go wonderfully interspersed in the row of David Austin roses I have in that corner of the backyard—you know the one, the far corner where it used to be shady, and now since I trimmed back that magnolia, it gets more sun?” She said this all very fast, hardly stopping for breath.

“Maybe Dad can help you,” I joked.

“Your father? In my garden? Never!”

“So how’s Marty’s room? He told me he painted it black.”

“That boy,” she sighed.

I looked around to make sure George wasn’t in the room, and lowered my voice.

“Mom, I’m thinking about maybe coming for a visit, with Lucy.”

“That’s wonderful, dear! It’ll be so nice to see you. When are you coming?”

“I’m not sure,” I said softly. “I’m not sure when I’m coming, and I’m not sure if I’ll be coming, actually. But I might want to stay a while.”

“Is everything all right?” Mom asked.

“Everything’s fine,” I said.

She was silent for a moment, then: “Vivian . . .” she said.

I waited expectantly.

“You know you can always come home, and you can stay as long as you like. I really want to help out, any way I can. I tell you what. I’ll set up that spare room off the kitchen for Lucy; that way she can have her own room. Is her favorite color still pink?”

“Sure is.” I drew a ragged breath.

“Well, I’ll paint it pink. It’ll be a fun project for me, this weekend.”

“Mom, I really appreciate it, but I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying. Don’t go to all that trouble.”

“I’d like to,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how long you stay. It just matters that you wanted to come back.”

“I do,” I said softly, and for the first time, I realized it was true.

“So,” she finished brightly, “Anyhow, about the garden. There are bare spots between the roses, and it’s always bothered me. It took me years to figure it out, but now I’m convinced—that yarrow, and a border of iberis and catmint in front—it’ll look so pretty every spring. I hear it’ll be getting hot this week, so I need to get them right in the ground. I just don’t know how I’m going to get it all done, along with all the work I need to do for that History Park benefit.

“Meanwhile, I’d like to ask your advice. My subscriptions to Bon Appetit and Gourmet have both come due, and honestly I’m not sure I need to keep getting both magazines. Marty refuses to eat anything but sushi these days, and your dad never seems to be home. It’s only me that I’m cooking for most days. What do you think?”

And that was that.

~ ~ ~

The day went by too quickly. I couldn’t imagine looking forward to Sunday dinner any less. As it had been on Thursday and the week before, the sidewalk was still dismantled in front of Madame’s house. She hugged George effusively as usual, and me gingerly, as if I was carrying a contagious disease. My eyes narrowed. I’d had just about enough of the old bag. Why had I let her walk all over me all these years?

At dinner, Madame smiled at me, baring her teeth. Behind that smile lurked consequences. I didn’t care. “Vivian, are you still thinking about going back to work?” she asked. “That was big news, the other week.”

“It’s one of the possibilities,” I said coolly, poking at my grisly lamb chop and watery mashed potatoes—clearly instant.

“I thought so.” Madame was done with me, and turned to Lucy. “Alors,” she began, “Q’uest-ce que as-tu fait à . . .” Lucy looked terrified, her little knuckles whitening around the spoon she’d been chasing her potatoes with.

“Lucy,” I said suddenly, “do you want to speak French right now?”

She shook her head, silent. I leveled a look at Madame. “Another time, Anna,” I said, using her given name. “Lucy won’t be speaking French at Sunday dinners for a while.”

Madame simply stared at me, shocked. I continued gazing at her. She no longer had any power over me. George started to say something, but I glared at him and he silenced. Madame found her voice, unfortunately. “Listen, you little . . .” she began. For six years, she’d been waiting to tell me what she really thought of me, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said to Lucy, standing up and offering my hand, “So Daddy and Grand-mère can chat in peace.” I heard shouting behind me, chairs scraping back, but I paid no attention.

Holding hands, Lucy and I walked right out the front door, into the warm, jasmine-scented evening.