Double Happiness (3 page)

W
HEN
I
SABEL
S
TEPPED
FROM HER HONEYMOON BED AND
drew the drapes, the view of Atlantic City was awful. Tilted houses, scattered parking lots, municipal buildings rusty from the sea air. The arrangement seemed badly planned or not planned at all, and the elevation of their bedroom was wasted because the ocean was out of sight. Just behind me, Isabel thought. She turned as if to find it there. Tom was sleeping. His lips sometimes vibrated on the exhale. I have wasted him with kisses, she thought. Or at least she hoped she had. Marriage required a certain alignment of mind and body, and she was determined to make good on her end.

Isabel left the window and went in to draw her first bath in the heart-shaped tub. She chose the lavender bubble bath. She tried to remember, lavender was for fidelity? Lavender was for kindness? She couldn't recall but earnestly allowed its stream to join the bath water. She was twenty-two. The year was 1967.

At noon, a tiny bellboy, probably not more than fourteen years old, wheeled in breakfast. As the boy backed out the door, Tom, who was barely sitting up, reached for various pockets, but couldn't find anything smaller than a twenty and said he would catch him later. The bellboy nodded and smiled, but when Tom rose from the blankets and went into the bathroom, Isabel retrieved a five-dollar bill from her purse and settled the account on the spot. The moment the door whispered shut, she felt uneasy, almost dizzy, and hoped Tom would forget all about the bellboy. She imagined Tom's confusion when the boy said he'd been tipped, overtipped. Already she was making mistakes. She fiddled with the silvery tops on the dishes, piling them into an awkward stack before Tom came to the table. He mentioned his eggs were cold.

Breakfast was brief. They were both anxious to get on with the day. Tom hurried into his clothes, barely glancing at Isabel as she sat legs crossed in her new stockings, new shoes, pretty new dress. It was only in the lobby, heading across the massive expanse of green carpet, that Tom pulled her to him. She was walking slightly ahead, looking in her purse for a booklet on sights she had borrowed. He pulled her to him, as if overwhelmed by the sight of her, and kissed her just beneath the earlobe, and whispered, My sweet wife. She felt her heart would break open with relief. She was certain she heard the word
newlyweds
whispered by admiring bystanders she sensed all about them. The word danced very lightly on the air:
newlyweds
.

Beyond the gilded doors she could see how thick and gray the day had become. The cold was nearly visible. She pulled her collar high on her pearl-colored coat, winter-white, a bridal coat, and snuggled against Tom's arm. The boardwalk was immensely broad, its slats of wood arranged like a herringbone fabric. The waves sputtered and coughed a gray spume far to the left. So far away they seemed like a reel of film draped across the low horizon. Isabel nonetheless was transfixed by the sight of the drab sea. She'd grown up inland and was unaccustomed to water sprawling just out of reach.

Tom released his arm from Isabel's and scratched his bare head. Sweetheart, you forgot your hat! Isabel almost said, then stopped. She satisfied the impulse with a brief loving stroke across his windblown hair, then devoted herself to the pages of her tour book and was pleased to find something that would interest them both. The World Famous Diving Horse! Certainly better than skeet ball or the merry-go-round. It wasn't far, according to the map, and open year-round. So much was still closed in March.

Tom was willing to be led to the exhibition pier until a better idea presented itself. Did Isabel want to get a drink? Why not? They were on vacation. Honeymoon! Isabel cried. But she wanted to see the horse, didn't Tom? They could go watch, it wouldn't take long, and then they could go have a drink.

It was farther than Isabel's map had indicated. By the time they reached the pier, Isabel's cheeks were chafed from the cold.
Tom's gloved hands were deep in his pockets, his collar pulled nearly over his ears. They paid the three-dollar admission then went inside through a low damp tunnel that led to the end of the pier. They were well out into the ocean when they emerged to find a rather rickety arrangement, something like a small arena. Not very sturdy, Isabel thought. The planks rigged for seating looked barely stable. One whole side of the tiny stadium was completely open and a large chunk of gray ocean was revealed in the breach. The sky looked like the water, just a white shade of gray with brackish clouds bumping against each other. A harsh wind scorched through the opening. Tom and Isabel waited perhaps ten minutes for the other spectators to arrive, but no one else came.

Finally, a gate was released on a platform high above them. The platform had a long tongue, which extended through the gap and over a patch of ocean. Three men struggled above to bring a white horse, a beautiful, mammoth white horse, out onto the stand. Its eyes were covered with blinders, but even so it seemed to sense the waves were sharp and unwelcoming. Isabel thought its eyes must be very gentle, very kind. Some animals had very knowing eyes. She could tell, even from a distance, the white horse was one of them. The men struggled to get the horse to move forward, but it wouldn't, and each progression toward the sea was accomplished by the horse being dragged as though its hooves were skates across the wood planking,
and each forward pull was followed by a desperate skittering back.

Stupid horse, Tom said. What? said Isabel. But Tom didn't even look at her. He had his wallet out and was counting the bills inside. I'm not staying for this, he said, it's a waste of time and money, and he stood up, indicating that they should leave. Well, said Isabel, stalling until she had a clear idea of what to say. She looked up at the horse. It was on its hind legs, its hooves drawn close to its heart. How could she leave? I think we should stay, she said to Tom, I think the horse will jump, don't you? Fine, he said, stay, and before she knew it he was ducking into the tunnel.

It had happened so suddenly. They had had a fight, or it seemed as if they had and Isabel didn't know why. She sat, too confused to follow him and ask what was wrong. She huddled in her coat, which was far too thin for the gusts blowing off the water, and felt a sticky darkness opening up inside of her. She sat there, unable to budge, and watched the horse being coaxed into a dive. Now the men had something tempting in their hands. They waved some treat over the edge of the platform so the horse would be fooled into jumping, but still the horse stayed, impervious to threat or seduction. Isabel couldn't stop watching. When the horse went up on its hind legs she felt she understood that better than anything she'd ever known. She understood that drawing in, the way the horse's head lifted
back and to the side, away from the foolish men. She understood all that.

Someone was gently touching her shoulder. She turned, so relieved. Of course he'd come back. She knew he would, even if she'd been afraid to think it. But it was the attendant from the admission gate offering Isabel her money back. Isabel shook her head, no, it was all right, she didn't want her money. The horse had done the right thing, she said, made the right decision, it's too cold to jump into the ocean today.

When the horse was finally led off the platform and the gate had been bolted, Isabel stood, wrapped her coat tighter around her body, and prepared to return to the hotel.

When she unlocked the door of their suite, Tom's back was to her. He sat slumped in the black-leather armchair, facing the television. Someone had sent flowers. Plump irises sheathed in pink cellophane were uncentered on the coffee table, the card still sealed. Tom was having his drink. He set a miniature empty bottle down by way of greeting. She approached him unsure what to say. He didn't ask her anything, didn't say hello. His face didn't have that hinged-shut look he had when he was angry. Still, there was nothing to guide her, nothing to signal her.

She opened the drapes wider. He didn't stop her or comment. He watched the television screen with indifference. Isabel shook back the gauzy sheers in the windows so the whole of the sky
and the topsy-turvy buildings were laid out in their unpredictable pattern before her. She pulled her coat close to her chest though the steam heat was stifling, and turned to watch her husband. After a very long while, when he didn't say anything, she told him, deliberately, on that first full day of their marriage, that the horse had jumped. The horse jumped, she said. It was incredible, she said. Then she stepped up onto their double honeymoon bed without removing her coat or shoes. She let the black heels scar the silver spread. She didn't care. She lifted her legs up and down, shoes scraping against the bedspread, and held her arms tucked in close to her, bare hands balled like hooves. She couldn't help it. She twisted her head back and let out a cry. The horse jumped she said, and Tom got up from his chair, a little afraid. My God, Isabel, he said, and thought she was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. She teetered on the edge of the bed, her arms starting to wilt, her face wrecked for a cry.

Come on, Isabel, he whispered, opening his arms. He gently pushed the black chair out of the way. Come on, Isabel, he said and bit down on his lip when he stepped forward needing to catch her.

W
HEN I SEE A PRETTY WOMAN NOW, I NO LONGER SAY
to myself, Nice face. Instead, I think, There's someone Sonny could love. If I'm sitting in a coffee shop, I sink behind my cup and hand him over. I imagine him looking at her obliquely, then full on, then straight into her eyes because some tilt of a lash tells him her beauty runs deep.

Lately I find myself making pilgrimages to Saks Fifth Avenue. I listen to the saleswoman talk about anything, even how everyone paid cash this Christmas, so that she will tell me what I really want to know: some device or potion, some answer. The person I talk to most is Rita. She doesn't wear a tag, only a discreet SFA enameled clip attached to a cunningly draped scarf. I know her name because of the embarrassing number of visits I've paid to her counter.

Rita has several bottles of lotion arrayed on the glass top. She slips a hand across the lids like a conjurer who will sense the vibration of the most appropriate liquid. Her hand pauses
above a squat bottle of vivid yellow gel, which she then slides forward. I pick it up, bring it close to my face, but the color makes me skeptical enough to replace it on the glass without opening it. Rita's lips barely purse. She leans down, keeping her head above the counter like a swimmer, and retrieves a smaller brown vial from below. I examine her skin as I always do when I see her, scanning for improvements that are never as dramatic as I would hope, and this disappointment deploys a childhood memory:

I was at the pharmacy where the word
Beauty
hung suspended by small brass chains. My sister Cara dangled in a pouch slung from my mother's shoulders, her baby face closed in sleep. I walked my hands along the edge of the cosmetics case to the perfume testers clustered on a mirrored tray. I sprayed my arms and throat with Blue Grass. I knew the words and expected to be coated with the aroma of grass and oil stuck to the blades of a mower; instead, I smelled like a defunct honeysuckle. I sniffed my forearm closely. The perfume had already dried and penetrated my skin. Now, I suspected, it was coursing through my veins with the blood. The saleswoman leaned over the case and brought her face close to mine. Her skin was pitted and sallow. She wore something sticky on her cheeks and nose. She breathed sour puffs of air. My mother said, Eden! And I froze. But the woman remained hovering over me, smiling like we knew something together. That scared me.

Rita at Saks and I don't share any special knowledge. I get the impression that Rita thinks I'm a bit of a rube. When she dips my credit card into the computer slide and reaches for tissue paper some weariness snags her motions. But I just can't tolerate the idea of trying other counters for someone more sympathetic. Rita's counter is out of the way, and she doesn't mind going to get special things. If Sonny could see me he'd be shocked—or perhaps contemptuous, it's hard to say.

Sonny has been taking me to Scarsdale. In the middle of the night he'll roll from his side of the bed, nestle his face into my neck and say, Are you awake? If I don't have to work the next day, I say yes, and we go off to catch the sunrise over the back nine at the Scarsdale Golf Club. Sonny will be forty in July, and I think this reexposure to Scarsdale is a way of collecting himself before he hands the whole bundle over to middle age. We sit in his blue-gray Toyota banked against the curb before the first house he ever lived in. It is tasteful beyond compare, angled on the irregular slope of grass like a tipped hat. In the early morning light the lawn has turquoise highlights in its erect little blades and the leaded windows each catch a different version of the sun. Sonny doesn't say a lot during these visits, but I can imagine him a toughie with a blond crew cut, pouncing on his little brother Matthew in the backyard. I never pounced on Cara when we were small. Not once.

* * *

I leave Rita, carrying a shapely black paper bag dangling from my wrist and walk the few blocks east to the subway in a state of grace. The handsome weight pulls slightly on my arm. My soul feels smooth and settled, but this good feeling vanishes abruptly when I take my seat between two passengers on the packed Lexington Avenue train heading south. My bottom straddles the small plastic hump that allots the true seats.

There is a very young couple diagonally across from me. The man's expression tells me that he has met his companion only moments ago and his greatest desire is to obtain her phone number before his stop arrives. I look to the woman to gauge his chances and am halted effectively by the shape of her eyebrows, which have the exact proportions of boomerangs. Two tiny boomerangs have fixed themselves, midflight, above her startled eyes. This gives her face the aspect of both utter fixity and infinite movement, simultaneously—a powerful combination. I am not surprised at the young man's attraction, but I can't get beyond those brows. I reposition my legs and think of something else. I think of Sonny.