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“Maybe it’s a surprise.”
Oh no! “No surprise parties, Mom. I mean it,” Sylvie warned. “It’s bad enough being forty. I don’t need the whole cul-de-sac gloating. Not to mention Rosalie.” Just the thought of her ex-sister-in-law made Sylvie shiver. She held up the brochure. There was a picture of a guest room showing a canopy bed hung with white. She and Bob, tanned, lying under the canopy…. Well, she couldn’t tan but she could turn pink and put her arms around him and …
“Sylvie, are you moping? Not that I’d blame you, with the twins gone. It’s hard that both children had to leave at once. For me, I had six years to get used to Ellen, Phil, and then you leaving….”
“I’m not moping. I’m happy.” Sylvie clutched the brochure and dropped the other mail into the basket. “I’ve got to get ready for my lesson.”
“All right, dear. Call if you change your mind.”
There was a tapping on the glass of the French door. Mrs. Harriet Blank—Honey to her friends, if she had any—was standing at the back entrance. “You have a lot of leaves in the pool,” she said as she stepped into the room. “You should get one of those automatic pool sweepers.”
“Nice to see you too,” Sylvie said mildly. “It’s been a long summer.”
“I practiced every day,” Honey assured her, as defensive as Sylvie expected her to be. The lazy students always were. Honey took off her sweater and laid her bag on the armchair. She moved toward the bench, but paused and looked intently at Sylvie. “I saw you at L’Étoile, out by the lake, last week with Bob. You did something great to your face …” Honey took an even closer look at Sylvie, “… that night, anyway. I thought maybe you had a face-lift over the summer. You know, Carol Meyers did. She looks awful. Stretched. I hear she went all the way to Los Angeles for it. Waste of mileage. Anyway, you looked great—at L’Étoile—”
“Bob and I haven’t been out to dinner for months,” Sylvie said mildly. “Not since Bob started campaigning for the Masons’ grand vizier or whatever the boss is called.”
Honey made a face of disbelief. “Are you lying or did you forget?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t lie about being with my husband,” Sylvie said, laughing, “or about a face-lift.” She touched the part of her neck that had just begun to go a little crepey. Lately, when she glanced in a mirror, she sometimes saw a shadow of her mother’s face. God. She pushed the thought from her mind. She was letting this woman get to her. And Honey was such a ditz. She was too vain to wear her glasses most of the time, even when she drove. But … “When was it?” Sylvie couldn’t help but ask.
“Last Tuesday.”
“We were home,” Sylvie said. Then she remembered that Bob had been late on Tuesday. But not very late. “We were both home,” she emphasized.
“Come on. You were there,” Honey insisted. “The two of you were flirting like crazy. That’s why I didn’t even say hello.” Her voice drifted off. “You guys looked so romantic,” she murmured.
“That proves I wasn’t there,” Sylvie said, relieved. “In Shaker Heights, husbands don’t flirt with wives—at least not with their own.”
“It was you.” Honey paused. “Only your face was somehow … up. And you had only one chin.” Honey examined Sylvie’s face again. “You didn’t seem to have a wrinkle. And you were tan.”
“Honey, I never tan. Not since I was born. I turn red, crack, and peel. My mother can verify that.” Honey was a pain. “Shall we?” Sylvie asked, gesturing to the keyboard.
Honey leaned closer to Sylvie, still examining her face. “Well, you were tan two weeks ago. Did you buy that thing on QVC with the tape and the rubber bands? That temporary face-lift thing?”
“No, but I once did get the thigh master. It’s still under my bed. Want it?” Sylvie smacked her right leg and gestured for Honey to sit at the bench. “Obviously, I never used it.”
Honey seemed miffed by Sylvie’s response. They settled down to some finger exercises. It was clear that Honey hadn’t been practicing. Slowly they moved through the lesson. Somewhere near the end of the tiresome hour Sylvie thought she heard Bob’s car. She wanted to finish up quickly with Honey and present her new plan to her husband, but she was too professional to do it. She merely glanced over at the Hawaii brochure, propped at the edge of the music holder, and smiled.
At last the session was over. Sylvie gave Honey a new assignment and walked her to the French doors. What a day! The autumn air refreshed her, the crisp underscent of apples combining with that of drying leaves. Sylvie took a deep breath, then patted the sheet music she had handed Honey and raised her eyebrows, the strictest she ever got with an adult student. But subtlety was wasted on Honey. They said good-bye. Honey took the sheet music, looked up at her, and moved her hand to her own eyebrow, lifting the skin into a wrinkle-free arch. “If a person is going to look that good, even for one night, I think it’s really mean not to share how you did it with a friend,” Honey sniped.
“I share all my musical tips with you, Honey,” Sylvie said. “Here’s my best one: practice.” Gently she pushed the door closed and turned to join her husband.
2 (#ulink_3a05830c-354e-5c35-9a82-2a5e26740da2)
Bob wasn’t at his desk or in the living room. Sylvie checked the kitchen, flipped over the chicken that was sitting in its marinade, and sighed. Bob must have already slipped upstairs.
Sylvie was halfway up the stairs herself before she realized that she had left the travel brochure down in the music room. Honey, Sylvie admitted reluctantly, had flustered her. She turned around, bounded down the stairs, got the brochure, and doubled back. Now she could hear the sound of the shower in the master bath. That was what she’d been afraid of! It meant that Bob was probably going out again this evening. The chicken would be wasted. Damn it! Sylvie didn’t want to have to put off this conversation, but she didn’t want to be forced to sandwich it in between Bob’s ablutions and his departure.
Since Bob had begun to talk about becoming the grand panjandrum of the very secret Masons he’d been so busy. Why did he even want the position? It didn’t pay anything and it couldn’t really be any fun. Walking around in aprons, or whatever they wore, and singing secret songs seemed so unlike Bob. And why he needed to shave, change, and dress up for a smoke-filled room was also beyond her. He’d become more vain lately—she didn’t remember him ever bothering to shower and shave before Rotary, even when he was the president of that. Well, for all she knew, it was a Masonic rule or something. Sylvie got to the bedroom door, paused, and nervously smoothed her hair and then smoothed the brochure in her hand. It was time for a change. She’d just have to make Bob see that. Charm and quirkiness worked with her husband. She stopped for a moment at her bedside table and took out a roll of adhesive tape. She smiled to herself as she walked through the bedroom. She’d get his attention.
Sylvie marched aggressively into the bathroom. The steam pushed up against the door, then up against her body with a wet force. She couldn’t stop herself from looking at the place on the wall where, months ago, the paint had begun to peel. She wished, for the hundredth time, that Bob would remember not to turn the hot water up quite so high—but he never did. Acceptance was just a part of marriage. Sylvie shrugged and walked over to the glass shower wall.
Through the mottled texture of the glass she could see Bob’s body, but the glass seemed to turn him into what looked like animated blots of color—kind of like the way technicians electronically scrambled guilty people’s faces on television when they were being interviewed against their will. Sylvie stared. Pointillistic Bob. Then she picked up a hand towel and wiped down the glass. She’d be cute and quirky. Jauntily, Sylvie pushed the brochure up against the shower wall and, despite the moisture, used the adhesive tape to secure it there.
“Hi, honey. I have a surprise.”
“Your lesson over?”
Sylvie could see that the white dots topping the pink dots of Bob’s head had just about been washed off the animated figure that was her husband. Which meant that the shampooing was over and that he could safely open his eyes. She tapped the glass. “See what I brought you,” she said. She watched as he moved closer to the glass. He bent, suddenly, almost against the textured partition and his face clearly emerged. Very wet, but recognizably Bob’s nice-looking face. Close to the glass the wavering images didn’t blur. Sylvie knew he was close enough to see the brochure.
“Show and tell?” he asked casually.
“Show and go,” she responded, trying to be cute.
But then, to her disappointment, cuteness failed. His head disappeared again. He became a Seurat painting: Tuesday in the Shower with Bob.
Sylvie felt her jauntiness drop like a wilted leaf from a tree. No. He had to pay attention. She tapped the shower stall again. “Bob!
Look! There haven’t been colors like this since the seventies.”
He was fumbling for something on the corner shelf. “Beautiful. What is that? Something like Hawaii?”
“Good, Bob. It is Hawaii.” For a moment she felt hope surge, but then realized he wasn’t even looking. She’d have to try again. “You see those two people snorkeling? Isn’t it weird how they look just like us? They could be us, Bob.” Sylvie paused for his reaction. Then, to her dismay, she saw more white animated dots appearing at the top of her husband’s wavering form. He was shampooing twice. That was truly unusual. Bob never read the directions on any product or appliance, not since she’d met him. When did he ever read the instructions on the shampoo tube? Since when did he soap up twice?
The steam was taking over. Sylvie took the brochure down. Already its crisp new feel had begun to be transformed by the bathroom dampness. The pictures now sagged across the double-page spreads. For a moment the sag was echoed by the sag of Bob’s little belly, which emerged first from the stall, followed by the rest of him, only to be quickly wrapped in the special bath sheet he liked to use. Then, swaddled, he turned and inserted his arm into the shower, shutting off the water at last. The silence seemed startling to Sylvie, who felt more than a little bit forlorn. Perhaps Bob noticed, because he turned and gave her one of the big bear hugs that he was famous for. Just as she started to relax into it he dropped his arms, turned to the sink, and took down his razor and can of foam.
“You hear from the kids?” he asked casually.
“Nothing from Kenny, but Reenie sent a card. She says she wants to change her major again.”
“No more French poetry?” Bob asked, spreading the foam along his right cheek and stretching his neck up in that way men did before they patted the cream on their jowls. Sylvie wondered if shaving had some age-defying quality—Bob’s neck looked more taut than hers did, though he was already forty-four.
“She feels she has to major in post-Communist Russian studies.”
“Has to? That seems like something no one has to do,” he said as he pulled the razor down his cheek.
As always, Sylvie felt she had to spring to the defense of their mercurial daughter. Temperamentally Reenie and Bob were so similar that sometimes Sylvie had to run interference. “She’s been thinking about it a lot. I admit she’s a little at sea right now.”
“Well, she better move up to an A, or a B plus at the very least,” Bob punned. He flashed her a quick smile. His teeth seemed yellow against the unusually white-white of his foamy beard. It gave him an almost unpleasant wolfish look. Sylvie thought of the phrase “long in the tooth.” “She has to get a scholarship by next year is what she has to do,” Bob continued. The razor sliced another path through the foam. “First she had to pick the most expensive school in America. Now she has to study irrelevant recent history. You can’t even make a living with a degree in irrelevant ancient history.”
“The two of us felt we had to major in music,” Sylvie reminded him.
“Yeah. It sure helped me in my career,” Bob said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “When I’m giving a test drive, I know all the classical radio stations.”
Sylvie didn’t like the tone of this conversation. Bob seemed distracted and cranky. Normally, he was an indulgent father, a loving husband. Feeling a little desperate, Sylvie leaned forward and taped the buckling brochure to the mirror, beside the reflection of his now almost shaved face. It was hard to get the tape to stick to the wet glass.
Bob ignored the thing and rinsed the razor. “It’s not the seventies or eighties anymore,” he said. “Reenie has to begin thinking responsibly. Realistically. Do you realize the kids are older now than we were when we met?”
“They’re too short to be that old,” Sylvie told him.
He laughed and used one hand to pinch the nape of her neck, giving her the tug that connected deep inside her. Sylvie smiled into the mirror at him and started to gesture to the brochure, but he pulled his hand away and bent over, rooting around in the cabinet under the sink. “Bob, when we finished Juilliard, we were going to travel around the country in a painted bus. And play music wherever we felt like it. Why didn’t we do that?” Sylvie asked. Her voice, she realized, sounded plaintive. Where was quirky? Where was jaunty?
Bob was slapping his face with an aftershave. “Two reasons,” he said. “We were a decade too late and we had a life instead.”
“Bob. About Hawaii. For my birthday I’d really like to—”
“Oh no! A trip? Now?” He turned away from the mirror. “Come on, baby. That’s out of the question. We have the new models just jamming the lot. Your father’s talking about an advertising push, and I’m flirting with the idea of this political thing. Anyway, with two tuitions … we just can’t.”
“It’s not expensive,” Sylvie gabbled. “Not at this time of year. The season hasn’t begun yet. There’s a package deal. And I have money saved from lessons.”
“Hey! Pay for your own fortieth birthday present? I don’t think so.” He bent to her cheek and kissed her. His aftershave smelled of lime, unfamiliar. “Anyway, I already got your present for you. I brought it home tonight. Want to see it?” He dropped his towel, pulled on his briefs, stepped into his slacks, and looked around for his belt. Sylvie handed it to him. As he threaded it through his belt loops, Sylvie watched the brochure slide slowly down the wet mirror and settle in a pool of water on the vanity.
Bob, his shirt on, gave her another bear hug. “Hey! Come downstairs. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten your upcoming big day. Four decades! And you don’t look a day over forty.” She smiled weakly at him. He took her hand. “So, come on down and see your reward.”
Sylvie slowly followed Bob as he led her downstairs, through the kitchen, out the back door, past the rose bed and her row of double zinnias, over to the driveway. The light was beginning to fade, and his car—his obsession—was parked in front of the garage.
“You’re giving me Beautiful Baby for my birthday?” Sylvie joked mildly. If Bob had a choice between losing his car or his prostate, he’d probably keep the two-seater. It was a perfectly restored BMW, a 1971 XS200. But what in the world had he gotten for her? Her heart fluttered for a moment. Bob’s car was tiny, but there was enough room in the glove compartment for a jewelry box.
“You know my birthday isn’t until Friday. Shouldn’t we wait until then?” Sylvie asked. She felt guilty that she’d had ungracious thoughts about Bob. He really was thoughtful.
“Come on! You seem a little down. I want you to enjoy this as soon as possible. Use it on your birthday.” Bob pressed the remote to open the garage doors. As they swung up, he turned on the lights.
There, illuminated by the overhead fluorescent, was a new BMW convertible. A huge red bow was stretched across the hood. A car? Bob put his arm around her. “Happy birthday, honey,” he said. “Kids are gone. Time for a toy. Enjoy yourself.”
Sylvie looked at the sparkling silvery-paint-and-shiny-chrome object. “You took away my sedan?” she asked weakly.
“Don’t worry about a thing. Already detailed and in the previously owned lot.” He gestured to the convertible. “Isn’t she a beauty? Isn’t that better than a trip to Hawaii?”
Sylvie reluctantly nodded. She should feel grateful and excited, she told herself. Even if the family did own a BMW dealership and she got a new car every couple of years as a matter of course. This one was special. She knew Bob couldn’t keep the new convertibles on the lot. So why did she feel so … disappointed? She looked up at Bob. “Thank you,” she said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. She failed. “It’s really extravagant. It’s great,” she said, and she heard the flatness in her voice. God, she hoped Bob didn’t. She wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.
But Bob didn’t seem hurt. He patted the leather of the seat. “You’ll love it as much as I love mine,” he told her. Sylvie doubted that, but she managed a smile. “Look, I’ve got to go,” he continued. “We’ll take the car out for your birthday, okay? Maybe we’ll drive up to the lake. Eat at L’Étoile. We haven’t been there in a long time.”
“Sure. Okay.” Sylvie paused. What was it? Oh. “That’s funny, because when Honey Blank came over today—”
Bob had pulled out his car keys. “Honey Blank? That piece of work? Can you tell me in four words or less?” he asked. “Or, better, save it for later. I really have to go.”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you when you get home,” Sylvie agreed. What difference did the coincidence make? Barely a conversation point.
“I might be late. I won’t wake you.” Bob got into Beautiful Baby and started her up. For a moment Sylvie saw him there as a stranger, a middle-aged man with a bit of a paunch sitting in a sports car built for the very young.
“I wouldn’t mind if you did wake me,” she told him, hoping he’d get the hint, but he had already begun backing out of the driveway. He waved as he pulled into the cul-de-sac and then accelerated. Sylvie watched him go. She stood for a moment in the twilight, the ugly fluorescent shining out of the garage behind her making the macadam under her feet look purple with oil.
“Well. That’s impressive.”
Sylvie looked up. God, it was Rosalie the Bitter, her ex-sister-in-law. Not right now, Sylvie thought. It wasn’t that Sylvie didn’t love Rosalie and feel sorry for her. She even took her side over her own brother’s, but Rosalie was difficult.
“A new car?” Rosalie asked. “I can’t even get Phil to fix my transmission. And he’s in charge of the service department.”
Sylvie had long known there was no way to have a conversation with Rosalie. Everything was a complaint or an attack. Though she’d wound up with the house, alimony, and healthy child support, Rosalie still felt cheated. Of course, Sylvie had to admit, Rosalie had been cheated on. Even if Phil was her brother, Sylvie thought he’d gotten what he deserved. But she couldn’t help wishing Rosalie didn’t live right next door.
“Have you been jogging?” Sylvie asked, partly to change the subject and partly to just say something. Rosalie was in shorts and the kind of industrial Nikes that cost in the three figures. Sylvie pressed the garage button to close the door. Rosalie, thin as a rake, ignored the question. It seemed to Sylvie that she’d displaced most of the energy she’d used nagging Phil and now used it to exercise with. Rosalie jogged, lifted weights, taught aerobics, and even attended a yoga class in downtown Cleveland. Maybe, Sylvie thought, she should give Rosalie her thigh master. Not that she needed it.
“You know how lucky you are?” Rosalie demanded. “Do you know?” Rosalie looked around at the flower beds, the lawn, the house. “A new car in your garage, two nice kids in college, and a husband in your bed.” Rosalie shook her dark head. Sylvie turned away and started for the back door. She felt sorry for Rosalie—her three kids argued or ignored her, had dropped out of school and out of work. But Rosalie never stopped complaining. Now she followed Sylvie across the slate patio. Rosalie the Relentless. “Forty isn’t easy for any woman. But if anyone has it easy, you do,” Rosalie was saying. “You’re lucky. You’ve always been lucky.”
Sylvie got to the screen door, opened it, and slipped in. Then, she very deliberately locked the button. “You’re right, Rosalie,” Sylvie said through the screen. “I’m lucky. My life is a paradise.”
And she shut the back door.
3 (#ulink_3257f6f7-4aed-5b46-b3cd-c8055d44ead1)
Sylvie had put the top down on her new car although there was a chill in the air. It was wasteful to drive with the heat pumping and the top off but she was doing it. What the hell. She’d be self-indulgent. She was almost forty. Live a little!
The groceries she’d just bought were arranged neatly in four bags across the backseat and, as she took a sharp turn, she glimpsed them in the mirror. They shifted but didn’t spill. Before the children had left she used to have to fill the backseat and the trunk of the sedan with groceries—Kenny and his friends ate like horses. Now four bags and a dollar tip to the box boy was all it took to fill the backseat and restock the larder at home.
She took a curve much faster than usual. The wind whipped at her hair. It was odd there was so much air, yet she couldn’t seem to breathe. Somehow all she could manage was shallow breaths. Maybe she should take a yoga class.
Last night, after choking down a solitary dinner of overdone chicken, she’d waited for Bob. He’d come in after midnight and he hadn’t wanted to talk. Sylvie didn’t push it. Instead, she’d lain awake most of the night, sleepless and confused. She had—
Out of nowhere a car pulled out of an almost hidden driveway on her right. Sylvie moved the wheel and the convertible swerved responsively. A van was in the oncoming lane. The slightest touch brought her car back, long before the van was a real danger to her, but she was shaken. So were the groceries. Sylvie had to admit that the convertible was beautiful to drive, but she didn’t want it. It was wrong somehow. It felt all wrong.
What’s wrong with me? Sylvie thought. Most women would give up their husbands for a car like this. Or, for that matter, give up their cars for a husband like mine. And I have both. Rosalie is right. I’m very lucky. I should be grateful. She began her litany. I’m healthy, I love Bob, he loves me, the kids are fine. It’s a beautiful sunny day, and the leaves are just starting to turn. This unease she felt, this nagging sense of dissatisfaction, wasn’t like her. Sylvie felt ashamed at her unhappiness, but it was still there, right under her breastbone. She braked for a red light, the car gliding smoothly and effortlessly to a stop.
The steering wheel under her hands was wet with sweat. The feeling that had been building in her, lodging in her chest, now moved into her throat and blocked it. She tried to swallow and couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter anyway—her mouth was so dry there was nothing to swallow. Either I’m going crazy or something is really wrong, she thought as the light turned green. A horn blared behind her. The driver hadn’t even given her a minute. She accelerated. All at once she was swept with a surge of anger—of rage—so complete that she had trouble seeing the road. She looked in the rear view mirror at the old man in the big Buick behind her, gunned the motor, and flipped him the bird.
God! She’d never done that before in her life. Road rage? What was going on?
She realized that it was more than not wanting this car. Bob hadn’t thought of her when he took it off the lot. It was a reflexive gift, not a reflective one. He hadn’t reflected, thought, for one moment about what she might want. He took her for granted. He hadn’t listened about Hawaii either. When was the last time he had listened? Sylvie didn’t want automatic gifts, no matter how luxurious. She didn’t want to be taken for granted. She didn’t want to be ignored by Bob. There was so many things she had that she didn’t want, she felt almost dizzy and nearly missed the left into the cul-de-sac. She jerked the wheel and the new tires squealed making the turn. She drove slowly on Harris Place, the street she lived on, where her mother had the big house with the white columns and where her brother had lived in the Tudor before he’d divorced Rosalie. The few other houses on Harris were all traditional, well-designed and maintained. She drove past the beds of vinca in front of the Williamsons’ and the row of gold chrysanthemums unimaginatively lined up along Rosalie’s fence. Everything appeared so right, but this foreboding, this sense that it was wrong, became insupportable. She still couldn’t breathe. It was as if the open top of the car let the entire weight of the universe in to crush her. Her house, the house she loved, loomed up.
Sylvie made a sharp right and felt the wheels of the BM W effortlessly move over the curb. She drove the car calmly across her own side lawn and, when she reached it, through the flower border, right over the zinnias. She felt an icy stillness as she proceeded onto the back lawn and engineered a carefully calculated right turn, avoiding the slate patio. The aqua rectangle of the pool was right before her and, without slowing down, she headed for it, the car, like a homing device, moving toward the concrete edge of the eight-foot diving drop. As the front wheels spun out into empty space, just before they took the plunge into the turquoise water, Sylvie was able to take the first deep breath she had taken all day.
“Sylvie! Sylvie, baby! Are you okay?”
Mildred had been rehanging the bedroom curtains and had looked down to see the L her daughter made in the lawn as she had done this crazy thing. Now Mildred stood at the edge of the pool. She couldn’t swim—never had—but she’d jump in to attempt to save her daughter if she must. Mildred was relieved then to see that Sylvie’s head had broken through the leaf-strewn surface of the water. Sylvie, a good swimmer, breaststroked gracefully over the trunk of the car and across the pool, still holding on to her purse. Her shoes had fallen to the bottom, but the shorts and blouse she had on felt surprisingly heavy, pulling her down. Still, Sylvie managed to move through the cold water to the ladder.
Mildred was panting, one hand against the ladder rail, the other hand on her heaving chest. “You frightened me,” Mildred said. There was a scream from the other side of the property and Mildred started and turned her head. Sylvie, still in the pool, couldn’t see but knew whose voice it was. “Oh god,” Mildred muttered. “I know she never washes her curtains, so what’s her excuse for seeing this?” She squatted down to get closer to Sylvie and extended her hand to help her. “Your ex-sister-in-law is waving to you,” she said.
Climbing the ladder, Sylvie turned and saw Rosalie’s dark head over the pickets of the north fence. “Trouble in Paradise?” Rosalie yelled.
Mildred, ignoring Rosalie, carefully helped her daughter out of the pool. “Why did you do that?” she asked.
“So I’ll remember where I parked?”
“Are you being flippant with your mother?”
Sylvie opened her purse, oblivious to the water that poured out, and dropped in her car keys. She snapped the purse shut. The noise it made, like a tiny sedan door closing, did not sound as solid as usual. “Flippant?” she echoed, distracted. She was a little dazed, but at least she could breathe.
“Sylvie, you do realize you’ve just done a very strange thing? If you don’t, it’s even stranger.”
