Heartburn (12 page)

“It’s Mark,” I said.

“Did something happen to Mark?” said Arthur. “Jesus Christ, Rachel. What is it?”

“Arthur,” said Julie, “Thelma Rice is having the affair with Mark.”

“He says he’s in love with her,” I said.

“He told you this?” said Arthur.

“Yes,” I said.

“Why did he tell you this?” said Arthur.

“I found a book she’d given him with an inscription in it, and when I confronted him, he said he was in love with her.”

“He said he was in love with her or he said he was fucking her?” said Arthur.

“He said he was in love with her but he said he wasn’t fucking her,” I said.

“Where are you?” said Julie.

“In New York,” I said. “At my father’s.”

“Where’s Sam?” said Julie.

“With me,” I said.

“Does he know what’s happening?” said Arthur.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve been crying for eight hours now, and he hasn’t even noticed.”

“I know,” said Julie. “When Alexandra was two I cried for eight
months
and she never noticed.”

“Does Mark know you’re there?” said Arthur.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“That fuckhead,” said Arthur. “He’s gone crazy.”

“That’s what I said to him,” I said. “But he denied it.”

“Of course he denied it,” said Arthur. “That’s the truest sign of insanity—insane people are always sure they’re just fine. It’s only the sane people who are willing to admit they’re crazy.”

“Did you know about this, Arthur?” said Julie.

“Of course I didn’t know about it,” said Arthur. “How could you think I would know about it and not tell you?”

“I told him he had to stop seeing her,” I said.

“And what did he say?” said Arthur.

“He said he wouldn’t. And he said I should stay with him anyway and have the baby. He said, ‘I am in love with Thelma Rice. I still have feelings about you, of course, and we are going to have another baby, so I suggest we just get from day to day.’ ”

“Oh, shit,” said Julie.

“Listen, Rachel, sit tight,” said Arthur. “I’m going to talk to him.”

Arthur and Julie will go over there and beat some sense into Mark, I thought when I hung up the phone. Arthur and Julie will glare at him until he withers under the moral opprobrium of their gaze. Arthur and Julie will take the power of our friendship and club him into submission. This was not exactly the romantic scenario I had had in mind—I would have preferred Mark to have a more voluntary kind of blinding vision—but it would have to do. After all, Mark might be willing to give me up, and my vinaigrette, but he would never give up the four of us. And Thelma would never fit in. For one thing, she was too tall. Arthur and Julie and Mark and I were all approximately the same size, which is one reason we traveled so well together. It’s hard to walk in lockstep with people
a lot taller than you are, because they take longer strides, and you always feel like a little puppy scampering to keep up. For another thing, Thelma Rice really didn’t care about food—that was clear from her gluey puddings—while the four of us had a friendship that was a shrine to food. We had driven miles to find the world’s creamiest cheesecake and the world’s largest pistachio nut and the world’s sweetest corn on the cob. We had spent hours in blind taste testings of kosher hot dogs and double chocolate chip ice cream. When Julie went home to Fort Worth, she flew back with spareribs from Angelo’s Beef Bar-B-Q, and when I went to New York, I flew back with smoked butterfish from Russ and Daughters. Once, in New Orleans, we all went to Mosca’s for dinner, and we ate marinated crab, baked oysters, barbecued shrimp, spaghetti bordelaise, chicken with garlic, sausage with potatoes, and on the way back to town, a dozen oysters each at the Acme and beignets and coffee with chicory on the wharf. Then Arthur said, “Let’s go to Chez Helene for the bread pudding,” and we did, and we each had two. The owner of Chez Helene gave us the bread pudding recipe when we left, and I’m going to throw it in because it’s the best bread pudding I’ve ever eaten. It tastes like caramelized mush. Cream 2 cups sugar with 2 sticks butter. Then add 2 ½ cups milk, one 13-ounce can evaporated milk, 2 tablespoons nutmeg, 2 tablespoons vanilla, a loaf of wet bread in chunks and pieces (any bread will do, the worse the better) and 1 cup raisins. Stir to mix. Pour into a deep greased casserole and bake at 350° for 2 hours, stirring after the first hour. Serve warm with hard sauce.

For the most part, Arthur Siegel is remarkably content. Once when we played Do You Have Any Regrets, the only thing he could come up with was that we hadn’t ordered some
fried onion rings at Chez Helene along with the bread pudding. When we played What Do You Wish You Were Named, I wanted to be named Veronica because it’s luscious and I’m not, Julie wanted to be named Anthea because it’s thin and she’s not, Mark wanted to be named Sasha because it’s dashing and he’s not, and Arthur thought it over and said it seemed to him his name suited him just fine. It does. Arthur is chunky but solid, as an Arthur should be, and he has a red handlebar mustache that almost compensates for the fact that he is almost completely bald. I’ll tell you how sensible Arthur is: he doesn’t even mind being bald.

Arthur and Mark had grown up together in Brooklyn. They went to Columbia, and then Mark went to journalism school there and Arthur went off to law school at Yale. They both ended up in Washington. Julie was a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill when Arthur met her. She has curly blond hair and goo-goo-googly eyes and big pearly teeth like the girl in the Coca-Cola ad, and every so often Arthur stares across the room at her as if he cannot believe she’s his. All of this is mystifying to Julie, who believes she’s just a fairly average plump girl from Texas who snagged a nice Jewish husband solely due to what she calls shiksa madness.

The Siegels got married and moved into a two-bedroom apartment on Connecticut Avenue, and Mark would bring his girl friends to breakfast on Sundays. The first Jewish Kimberly passed through their lives. Then more girl friends. Then Mark turned up with me, and suddenly there we were, the four of us. Together. We would sit around, doing nothing, nothing at all, lazy Sundays with clouds in the coffee and papers all over the living room and dusty Sunday light coming through the color-coordinated Levolor blinds. Arthur would say that
the trouble with Washington was that there wasn’t a decent delicatessen. Julie would say that the trouble with Washington was that there weren’t any late movies on television. I would say that the trouble with Washington was that it was so goyish. Mark would say that the trouble with Washington was that too many people there spent too much time figuring out what the trouble with it was. We would all say these things as if we had never said them before, and argue over them as if we had never argued over them before. Then we would all decide whether we wanted to be buried or cremated. Then we would move on to the important matters. Should they paint their living room peach? Should they strip down their dining table? Should they buy a videotape recorder? Should they re-cover the couch?

“I don’t see what was wrong with it before,” said Arthur after they re-covered the couch.

“Nothing was wrong with it before,” said Julie.

“What color is this anyway?” said Arthur.

“Taupe,” said Julie.

Arthur shook his head. “I’ve always been terrible at colors,” he said. “It comes from having grown up with the single-row box of crayons instead of the big box. If I’d had the big box I would now know taupe and cerise and ecru. Instead, all I know is burnt sienna. And what good does it do me? Never once have I heard anything described as burnt sienna. Never once have I heard anyone say, ‘Follow that burnt sienna car.’ ”

“I think there’s a column in this,” said Mark.

“Goddammit, Feldman,” said Arthur.

“You can have it if you want it,” said Mark.

“What do you mean, I can have it if I want it?” said Arthur.
“It’s
mine. I’m
the one who gets to say, ‘You can have it if you want it.’ Not you.”

“What are you going to do with it?” said Mark. “Write it up for the
Yale Law Review?
”

“He doesn’t have to do
anything
with it,” I said. “He can simply add it to his repertoire.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” said Arthur. He looked at Mark. “Don’t break up with her, okay?” he said. “Promise me you won’t.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Mark. “You’d think
you
were going with her.”

“We are,” said Arthur. “The two of us are going with the two of you.”

“You used to like me when I was unattached,” said Mark.

“Not as much as I like you as a couple,” said Arthur, and he gave Mark a playful punch on the arm.

“You’re punching me because you want me to think you’re kidding, but you’re not,” said Mark.

“You’ll never know, will you?” said Arthur. “The truth is, I wish you two would get married.”

“Arthur, for God’s sake,” said Julie.

“I can’t help it,” said Arthur. “I like being married. I want everyone I care about to be married. That’s the kind of guy I am. Warm. Generous. Expansive. Charming.”

“You just want everyone to be in the same pot you’re in,” said Mark.

“I like the pot I’m in,” said Arthur. “I like how it goes along. What’s for dinner and which movie should we see and where are my socks.”

“Where are your socks?” said Mark. “Where are my socks? Where are all the missing socks?”

“They’re in heaven,” said Arthur. “You die, you go to heaven, and they bring you a big box, and it’s got all your lost socks in it, and your mufflers and your gloves, and you get to spend eternity sorting them all out.”

“I think there’s a column in this,” said Mark.

“Goddammit, Feldman,” said Arthur.

Mark and I got married. You should have seen Arthur at the wedding. He stood with his head cocked at a jaunty angle, winking wildly and uncontrollably at the judge. He had done it. He had talked Mark into it. By the simple example of his own contentment, he had persuaded his best friend to give up bachelorhood. At the end of the ceremony, he whipped a glass from his pocket and placed it on the ground, and when Mark smashed it into the judge’s Oriental rug, Arthur whooped around the room and danced the kazatsky. Three months later, I was walking up Connecticut Avenue, through the park at Dupont Circle, and there were Arthur and an unidentified female in a mad clinch on the park bench.

“I saw Arthur this afternoon,” I said when I got home. “Kissing a …” I gestured absently with my hand and shook my head.

“Woman,” said Mark.

“How long have you known about it?” I said.

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Mark. “I was just finishing the sentence. With Arthur, he’s kissing a woman or a bagel. I took a guess.” He looked at me. “Who was she?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did she look like?”

“Thin. Pretty. Big tits. Your basic nightmare.”

We looked at each other.

“Should we do anything?” I said.

“He’s my friend,” said Mark. “We don’t meddle in each other’s lives.”

“Of course we do,” I said, “we meddle constantly. That’s what true friendship is about.”

“What did you have in mind?” said Mark.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Maybe it’s just a fling,” said Mark. “He’s almost forty, he probably feels nothing’s happening to him—”

“It’s just a passage,” I said angrily.

“Yeah,” said Mark.

“Shit,” I said.

“Look, I hated the book as much as you did,” said Mark.

“I know,” I said. “I just feel betrayed. Never mind Julie—he’s cheating on us, you know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean,” said Mark.

“One of the things I love about you is that you know what I mean even when I don’t,” I said.

“Actually, I don’t,” said Mark. “I just say I do.”

“Maybe it’s not serious,” I said.

“Maybe it’s just a fuck,” said Mark.

“Yeah,” I said.

“And I’m a ballerina,” said Mark.

Two nights later, Arthur rang the bell in the middle of the night and announced that he was in love.

“A stewardess?” said Mark.

“A flight attendant,” said Arthur.

“You must really be in love,” said Mark.

“I am,” said Arthur.

“Is this a midlife crisis or something?” said Mark.

“Don’t reduce my life to some dime-store philosophy so it’s easier for you to handle,” said Arthur. “For twenty years I’ve
watched you fuck around and fuck up and cheat on this one and cheat on that one. Did I ever judge you? Did I ever purse my lips? Did I ever say tch tch tch? Did you ever hear those words from me?”

“Tch tch tch?” said Mark. “Those words? I never heard those words because your tongue was so busy hanging out of your mouth you couldn’t get them out. Listen to me. You’re married. You’ve been married eight years. You’ve got a kid. Don’t throw it away for a fuck.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me things are going to be the same in bed with you and Rachel after eight years,” said Arthur.

“No,” said Mark, “but it’ll still be good.”

“It just won’t be as often,” said Arthur. “Instead of a couple of times a week it’ll be a couple of times a year.”

“I’ll be almost fifty in ten years,” said Mark.

“You know how old you have to be before you stop wanting to fuck strangers?” said Arthur. “Dead, that’s how old. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t go away. You put all this energy into suppressing it and telling yourself it’s worth it because of what you get in exchange, and then one day someone brushes up against you and you’re fourteen years old again and all you want to do is go to a drive-in movie and fuck her brains out in the back seat. But you don’t do it because you’re not going to be that kind of person, so you go home, and there’s your wife, and she wears socks to bed.”

“Socks again,” said Mark.

On and on they went. It was late. Two in the morning. Three in the morning. We sat around the kitchen table in the yellow glow of the high-crime lights on the street, and I listened to Mark. Marriage was a trust, he said. Betray that
trust and you have nothing, he said. I felt so smug. My husband the convert. My husband the true believer. My husband the husband. See a marriage counselor, he said. Do something.