Menage (6 page)

“Brace yourself, Heather. Maja is dead.”

First doubt, then relief, like that first hit of caffeine, surged through Heather, followed quickly by something ominous. He's killed her, she thought. The nervous click-click-click of his spoon against his cup was the tip-off. She imagined the two of them driving up the coast in a rental car, his losing control, a crash—. Fear gripped her. Steadying her own hand, she reached for his and softened her voice as she did for the children when they needed her. “Tell me what happened, Mack.” He was her children's father, after all; they were all implicated.

He laughed with relief at her show of sympathy. “Seems she took sleeping pills, lots of them,
according to the recipe in
Final Exit
. Everyone out there has a different theory why. The point is, though, at the funeral—”

“You went to the funeral?” Heather abruptly withdrew her hand. What could be more intimate than her funeral? Even dead (if she really was dead), Maja aroused her jealousy, made her feel excluded. “You didn't mention a funeral.”

“I wanted to tell you in person. It was at the funeral that I met Zoltan Barbu, the writer.” On the last two words Mack's voice executed a proprietary grace note, and he bowed his head respectfully.

“Right. Your dinner date. You must have been out all night. Because your phone was off and you weren't in your room.”

“I turned it off for the funeral and then forgot it. Anyway, after dinner we went to the beach to talk. A most amazing conversation, Heather, I wish you'd been there, you would have loved it. I brought back one of his books for you.”

“Oh, is that the surprise?”

“Not exactly. Wait. Zoltan is taking Maja's death sort of hard. He thinks her suicide was his fault, or at least that he's being blamed for it. He can't work.”

“How was it his fault?”

“They'd been more or less living together until a few weeks ago, when he kicked her out.”

“Living together!” Heather's wheels whirred. Then had she been wrong about Mack and Maja? Or had the two men been rivals for her, or caught up in some complicated threesome? What charms had Maja had that she could snag two such accomplished men? Now questions spilled out in rapid succession: “Why did you never mention Zoltan before? Or didn't you know about them? How did you find out? How come they broke up?”

“Whoa! Slow down. I'm going to tell you everything in due time.” He took a long swig of coffee.

“Come
on
, Mack!”

“The way Zoltan tells it, he needs to be alone to write. But she wouldn't let him. He had no privacy. So he kicked her out. But when he's alone too long he gets depressed and anxious and can't write either. So now he's in a crisis. He's being evicted from his apartment, he's broke, and he's being blamed for Maja's suicide.”

“Yeah? Well?”

“He thinks if he comes to the East Coast he may be able to get a book advance from a publisher. He claims what he needs in order to write is a quote normal family life unquote.” Mack took back Heather's
hand before breaking the news. “So I've invited him to come live with us for a while.
If
it's okay with you.”

Heather was speechless. Though she might justifiably feel outrage that Mack would invite a stranger to live with them without so much as consulting her, taking her assent for granted, in fact she was already tingling with anticipation at the prospect. Count on Mack to come up with some intriguing scheme like this just when they were slipping into a rut. Such bold unpredictable gestures were typical of him, part of what had attracted her in the first place. The audacious way he'd courted her: taking her to meet his parents on their third date, whisking her off to Puerto Rico for a weekend, obtaining magic mushrooms for her birthday. No chat chat chat like everyone else: Mack acted.

“What do you think, babe? Wouldn't hurt to have a writer around for you to talk to, would it? Besides, he seems to really need us.”

Talk of extravagant gifts! Who else would take such a gutsy risk to revitalize a marriage? Unless Mack was merely making another power play, or indulging his own desire to boast a private writer in residence. Either way, to be captivated by a stranger
and invite him to share your house and family—how impulsive, how foolhardy, how Mack!

He watched her thinking with that air of self-containment that had so entranced him when they met. Back then, some Yale coeds cracked under the pressure of condescending professors and male competition, but Heather had ignored the petty politics and kept her own counsel. When their physics professor had humiliated her for arriving late to class by questioning the seriousness of her entire sex, Mack waited for her afterward in order to apologize on behalf of his entire sex. Her expression of incredulity combined with appreciation was not unlike the one she wore now.

“Take your time thinking it over. Zoltan has lots of loose ends to tie up in L.A., and he can't come till I send him a plane ticket. Meanwhile, you might want to read this.” He handed her the book.

Heather turned the volume over slowly. Mack knew how to get her attention. On the back jacket she saw a picture of an intense, foreign-looking man, dark and brooding, staring straight into her eyes. Impressive blurbs, including one by Susan Sontag, compared his work to Orwell, Kosinski. On the title page was an inscription to both her and Mack that might or might not contain a cryptic message,
one she couldn't yet decipher. She blushed at the strangely stirring prospect of waking each morning to find such a person captive in her house, ready to talk to her at breakfast—a prospect that fed every romantic fantasy she had dutifully abandoned on her wedding day.

“I don't get it,” she said. “What makes him think he can live with us when he couldn't live with Maja?”

“That was different. Maja was always distracting him and making impossible demands. But we won't demand anything.”

Heather knew Mack was not one to give away something for nothing. The situation was loaded; she wondered if he wasn't perhaps setting her up for some devious test. Whatever he had in mind, she was up for it. “How long would he expect to stay?”

Mack shrugged. “Everything's open. We'll see how it goes. Naturally, if it doesn't work out, he leaves.”

Suddenly Heather smelled something more demanding than opportunity. “The artichokes!” She leaped up and ran to the kitchen, with Mack close behind her.

Despite the burned pot and acrid smell, Heather and Mack sat at the kitchen table stripping away
the blackened outer leaves and letting melted butter disguise the faint smoky taste that had penetrated clear to the hearts. As the leaves piled up on their plates they began to explore possibilities, debating what to tell the children and where to put Zoltan. Mack assumed they'd settle him downstairs in one of the guest rooms, but Heather wondered if he wouldn't be more comfortable upstairs in her study, with more privacy and the better view. That intimate hour making plans, with the children asleep and morning still hours away, reminded Heather of the times they'd once had sitting at the kitchen table in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment on East Ninety-second Street night after night (Mack had just begun his first ambitious complex and she was still working as an editorial assistant at a self-help magazine), planning the house they would one day build. Everything they fancied Mack drew into the plans—dream kitchen for her, workshop for him, music room, playroom for the children they would have (why not?), maybe wooded acres, spa and hot tub, solar panels, and a view. Somewhere they knew it was dangerous to pluck dreams from the air and build them of lumber and glass, like the poor fairy-tale woodsmen and fishwives who stole magic and thoughtlessly wished for
what they couldn't afford. But dreams seemed innocent when they were only dreams.

Though it was after two when they finally descended the stairs to bed, they celebrated their new hopes by an intense interlude—rare since the children came—of making love.

9
       
ON THE SUNDAY ZOLTAN
was to arrive, Heather and Mack were up at dawn, like irrepressible children in the hours preceding a birthday party. Before breakfast, Mack drove down to the hangar and took his plane up for a quick turn to dissipate some of his excess excitement. The sky was cloudless, the air bright with the crisp edge of autumn. Mack felt buoyant and powerful, as he always felt in the cockpit. His plane was too light for a long journey, but he had plans to upgrade to a small jet once the L.A. deal was consummated, Heather be damned.

When he returned home a couple of hours later, he found his wife and children outdoors collecting mums, wild asters, and maple leaves to decorate the house. Breakfast was over. He poured himself
a cup of coffee from the thermos, smeared cream cheese on a bagel, and sat down at the kitchen table to watch them through the window. Against the wooded backdrop with sunlight filtering through the yellow leaves, they looked like some misty painting of autumn, or of dancers romping in a garden, he thought, trying to see them through Zoltan's eyes.

Jamie walked toward the house carrying something in his small, cupped hands. Mack opened the kitchen door for him. “What you got there, James?”

“Newts.”

“Let's see.”

Jamie lifted one hand just enough for Mack to see two delicate red salamanders with tiny black spots nestled in his palm. Quickly Jamie snapped the cup of his hands closed.

“Whoa, pal, not so tight. You could crush them. What are you planning to do with them?

Chloe ran through the doorway. “Mommy says we can put them in the old aquarium we used to keep the fish in, with a screen on top so Tina can't get them and they can't get out. We're going to feed them flies and fish food. Would you like me to find some newts for you, Daddy?”

“Why yes, Chloe, I'd love that. Thank you, babe.”

She tugged at his hand. “Come on. I'll show you how to catch them.”

“Not now, though,” said Mack. “We have to get ready for our houseguest. But we can go out and look as soon as we get back from the airport.”

Heather emptied an armful of flowers into the big kitchen sink and turned on the water. “Mack! Please! Don't make promises you can't keep.”

“Okay, maybe tomorrow then,” said Mack, backing down.

“Promise, Daddy? Promise?”

“Tomorrow's Monday,” Heather reminded him. “Or were you planning to come home early?” She resented being forced to intervene.

Mack sighed. The day had just started and already she was criticizing his parenting. As if he would fail to do right by his own kids. She was irrational on the subject: urging him to spend more time with them yet not allowing them up in his plane. He lifted Chloe in his arms, hugged her. “I promise it'll be as soon as I can, babe.”

Heather kissed him on both cheeks. Today was not the day to bicker. “I know what,” she said. “Why don't you guys go out and get some pretty pebbles for the newts. Jamie, here's a pot you can put the newts in until I bring up the aquarium. Now go on, you two.”

She looked at her watch. Only four hours until he'd be here.

Seeing Heather check her watch, Mack checked his. “I have to leave for the airport pretty soon. Do you want me to lay the fire and set up the music before I go? Glenn Gould? Monk?”

“Whatever you think.”

“Okay. Then when you hear us drive up you can just light a match and throw a switch. I'll take the Porsche. Would you like me to pick up anything?”

“Some of those chocolate truffles they sell at the airport?”

She was glad Mack was going by himself. She needed the time to get ready. It would be easier for her, of course, if he took at least one of the kids along with him. When they knew she wanted everything tidy, they were usually at their most rambunctious; but she and Mack had agreed that a child in the car, even a quiet one in the back seat, might be too much family for Zoltan all at once. First impressions counted for so much.

BACK WHEN THEY STILL
lived in the city, Heather and Mack had sometimes hosted witty dinners on weekends for their friends, with her startling pastas
and his flaming desserts, but all that ended when they moved. Their friends from the city, reluctant to go all the way to New Jersey, preferred to meet them in a restaurant in town, and the few people who did come to visit, Mack's associates, were not friends enough to be invited to dinner. But tonight Heather was happy to devote her talents to the table. In the seldom used dining room, she set the table with linen napkins, the good crystal, a lavish centerpiece of autumn leaves and flowers, and tapered candles, as if for a party. The children were excited and impressed—enough, she hoped, to be on company behavior.

When everything that could be done in advance had been done—the bar set up, the wine breathing, the heavy cream whipped and chilling in a glass bowl, the children settled down with a movie in the playroom, and the fire, music, and lights awaiting the mere flick of a match or switch—Heather went downstairs to dress.

After wasting precious minutes trying to tame her unruly hair, she tied it back with a band and walked into her closet to pick out the right clothes. But which? From the start she had imagined herself meeting Zoltan in her burgundy silk outfit with the loose pants and fitted jacket that made
her feel glamorous and bold. But now, having read Zoltan's novel, she wavered. How should she present herself? How to decide, with so little to go on? The hero of Zoltan's novel was a man assaulted by successive political upheavals and all the confusions of modernity who, in a series of adventures in the mountains of an unnamed country—as forest guide, fire watch, and pilot—manages to overcome his adversaries through defiant gestures and vigorous actions. The only significant female character, the love interest, was a powerful seductress named Ursula. The image of her, buxom and maternal, with dark eyes, small waist, smooth black hair, and a musical voice, described by the author as “bewitching,” left Heather, with her small breasts, wide hips, pale eyes, masses of light wavy hair, and soft voice, unsure of her powers to bewitch. On the other hand, Ursula fails to capture the hero in the end.