My Husband's Sweethearts (18 page)

"I was?" Elspa says.

"You were," Eleanor says.

While standing at the front desk of the
Radisson in downtown Baltimore—a
swanky lobby, complete with lion statues—we
can't quite decide how to divvy up the rooms. To
the grave irritation of the front desk manager, a young
woman in heavy makeup—someone my mother would say
looks "highly polished"—we run through scenarios while
standing at the desk.

"Mother and daughter," my mother says. She's agitated,
shifty-eyed. This is not a pet-friendly hotel. Bogie is
in the car and will have to be smuggled in. She's talking
while casing the joint.

"But I want to help Elspa prep for this so maybe . . ."
I explain.

"I'll take my own room, if that would help," Eleanor
says.

"Don't be silly," my mother says, looking dewy with
nervous perspiration.

"I'm going to get my own room," John says.

"You shouldn't have to pay though," I say. I'm not
sure how this should work, but it seems like I've gotten
him into this mess and I know he doesn't have a lot of
money at present.

"No, no," he says.

It ends up that Elspa and I take one room. Eleanor
and my mother take another, and John gets his own. After
a few more moments of dithering over which credit cards
to put things on—John will not allow me to pay—we ride
up in the elevator.

And, as soon as it gives its first little jerk and starts to
ascend, Eleanor says, "I've always liked elevators. Even
when I was a little girl."

I turn and glare at her. She's the one who Artie confused
me with in one of his little numbered love notes
shoved onto some plastic fork in some gargantuan display
of flowers.

"What?" she says, looking at me.

"Nothing," I tell her. It's over with now. It shouldn't
matter, and yet I can't help it. I'm annoyed by the little reminder
of Artie's infidelity.

We all get out on the same floor—which my mother
insisted on for safety—and head in our various directions.

*

As soon as Elspa and I are in our room, settled in, I start
to write a script for her on Radisson stationery, listing tips
on the art of persuasion. She's lying on one of the queen-size
beds, staring at the ceiling with her hands folded on
her chest.

"Listen, you have to remember that you've given up
no legal rights here. The child is yours. Of course we
don't want to resort to this kind of language. We have
to sell them on the idea of you as a mother. Are you listening?"

"I'm praying."

"I didn't know you were religious."

"I'm not." Elspa's eyes are shut tight. Her hands are
clenched.

"Maybe I'll leave you alone. Maybe I'll get
something to eat with the others." I stand and grab my
pocketbook. "Do you want to come?"

She shakes her head no.

"Do you want me to bring something back?"

She says, "A salad."

*

I knock on Eleanor and my mother's door. There's no answer.
I wonder where they've gone. I move on down to
John's door, maybe he'll know. I knock. There's a soft
shuffling. The door opens. John's standing there, messy
and sleepy. He's shirtless, wearing loose-fitting jeans he's
obviously just hitched up.

"Were you sleeping?"

"Not really," he says, trying to sound perky.

"Napping or modeling?"

"Funny."

"I knocked on my mom's door to see if they wanted to
have dinner, but there wasn't an answer."

"They already left. They asked me, but didn't want to
disturb you and Elspa. I'm hungry enough now, though."

"Oh," I say, realizing that I haven't asked him to dinner
but may as well have. "I was just going to get something,
anything, really. We can do room service."

"No, no," he says. "Just give me a minute. Let's go out.
Eat something worthwhile. Come on in. I'll just put on a
shirt."

I step inside and let the door shut behind me. There
he is, putting on a T-shirt and then buttoning up a shirt. It
shouldn't be awkward. He's getting dressed not undressed.
But, still, we're in a hotel room together. There's
clothing involved. I start to chatter idly. "Well, I guess it's
just us then. Elspa is praying," I say. "She wants us to pick
up a salad."

"I didn't know she was religious," he says, putting his
wallet in his pocket.

"She isn't."

*

We're sitting in a seafood restaurant, dried nets and oars
and fishing poles decorating the upper reaches of the
walls. We're looking at stiff menus. The waiter walks up.
In lieu of a tablecloth, there's thick paper. The waiter pulls
out his pen.

He says, "I'm Jim, your waiter." He bends toward the
table and writes J-I-M in big letters.

John puts his hand out and Jim, naturally, hands over
the pen. "I'm John." He writes his name in front of his
place and hands the pen to me.

"I guess I'm Lucy then," I say, writing my name down,
too. I hand the pen back to the waiter, who's a little
befuddled.

"What can I get for you all tonight?"

We order the specials, some wine. And we find ourselves
sitting there, primly, a little awkward.

"Do you have a pen?" John asks.

"Sure." I rummage through my pocketbook and pull
one out. "What for?"

"I'm going to tell you a story from my childhood."

"Really? No more Jethro and Granny?"

"No. I'll narrate and draw."

"I didn't know you were an artist."

"I was the best drawer in my third-grade class. But I
lost interest after being snubbed by the New York City art
scene."

"They can be so fickle."

He's drawing now, a little figure, a woman with a large
dome of hair. "I blame my third-grade teacher. Mrs.
McMurray didn't push my career the way she should
have," he says.

"Is that Mrs. McMurray?" I ask, pointing at the
drawing.

"No," he says. "That's Rita Bessom. That's my mother."

"She had large hair."

"She believes in large hair. I think it's where she hides
her valuables. She still has large hair—though it's a bit
airier. This is her young hair though. She was just a kid
when she had me." He's drawing a picture of a man now.

"Is this a love story?"

"Not really. My mother's not the love type, really. One
of her valuables might have been her heart, which she's
kept hidden in her enormous hair."

"That's a disturbing image."

"It just came to me," he says. "I'm an edgy artist."

"And this is the young Artie Shoreman?" I ask, taking
a sip of the wine that's arrived.

"No," he says. "This is Richard Dent."

"Who's Richard Dent?" I ask.

He's drawing another man now on the other side of
Richard Dent. This one has epaulettes and a suitcase.
"And this is Artie Shoreman, dressed as a bellhop."

"Ah," I say. "I see." But I don't. "Who's Richard Dent?"

He gives Dent a duffel bag and an army hat. "He's a
soldier."

"What kind of soldier?" I ask.

Jim, the waiter, arrives with our salads. "Do you want
fresh ground pepper?"

John says, "No." He looks up and is staring at me
intently.

I shake my head.

The waiter disappears.

I ask the question again, because it seems like we're
frozen in this moment. "What kind of soldier is Richard
Dent?" I ask again. "Army? Navy? Coast Guard?"

"The kind that dies," John says. "No matter if someone's
in love with him back home or not." He adds a puff
of stomach to the drawing of his mother. He crosses out
Richard Dent. "He's the fathering kind of soldier who
then dies." He circles his mother and then Artie and then
ties the two circles together.

Suddenly I get it. "Is Richard Dent your father?" I ask.
"Is that what you're saying?"

John nods. "Yes."

"Not Artie Shoreman," I say.

"Not Artie Shoreman."

"Did your mother lie to Artie? To get him to support
the child? I mean,
you
?"

"Yes. Oldest trick in the book."

"Is this why you never called Artie your father?" I
push my chair out from behind me and stand up, feeling
numb in my legs. My cloth napkin falls to the floor. "This
is a scam? Using Artie as a workhorse, lying to him all
those years, and now . . . and now you're trying to cash in
again . . . first your mother and now you?"

"No," he says. "Not me. Never me."

But I've turned away, and I'm running, shakily. I feel
sick. I don't know if John's following me or not. I can't
look back. I skirt around tables, past the confused hostess,
and, there, right by the Please Wait to Be Seated sign,
John grabs my elbow.

"Lucy," he says. "Wait."

And in one swift motion I slap John across the face.
I've never slapped anyone before in my life, and I'm
shocked by the sound of it, the sting of it. My hand is ringing.

My eyes are blurry with tears. His hand falls away
from my arm, and I run out into the night.

I'm standing in front of my hotel room. I
don't want to barge in on Elspa with all this
fury and messiness. I try to straighten myself
up. I pull out an oval compact. My skin is blotchy, my
makeup smeared. I wipe off wet mascara with a tissue
from my pocketbook, which only makes things worse. I
work at my eyes a little more. My hand is shaking—the
hand that I slapped John with. Although I know it's
wrong, I wish I'd slapped more people in my life. I think
of my father's face as he waltzes out on us the month after
my birthday. I think of Artie, sitting on the edge of the
bed, wrapped in a towel, confessing to more than I
wanted to know. I imagine slapping them, the electric jolt,
the ringing sting.

How could John Bessom have lied to me all this time?
How could he have lied to Artie? To Eleanor and my
mother? To Elspa?

Elspa. I remind myself that this trip isn't about me
right now. It's certainly not about Artie being duped when
he was a kid working as a bellhop and cheated out of all
that money for decades. This is about Elspa and Rose
now, completely. That has to be my sole focus.

I slide the credit-card key into the slot. The door
clicks, the green light flashes. I walk in and the door closes
behind me.

Elspa isn't on the bed. She isn't in the bathroom.

"Elspa?" I call out uselessly.

Her duffel bag is still beside the bed, but she's gone.

There's a knock at the door. "Elspa?" I jog to answer
it, but before I get there John's voice rises up on the other
side.

"Lucy, it's John. Will you let me explain?" He's
breathless, too.

I pause for a moment. I don't want to hear an explanation,
but Elspa is gone and I know, deep in my stomach,
that something's wrong. I might need John's help.

I open the door. One of his cheeks is red. There's a
scratch that's bled a little near his eye, from one of my
nails. I don't feel guilty in the least. For a brief moment, he
looks relieved that I've opened the door at all, but it
doesn't last.

"Elspa is missing," I say.

"What do you mean?"

"She isn't here!"

I push past him to my mother's hotel room, four doors
down the hall. I knock. Eleanor appears and then my
mother, holding a wet, yellowed flattened bunch of toilet
paper. "Bogie peed," she says, by way of explanation. "It's
a new place. He was disoriented. Poor baby."

"Is Elspa with you?" I ask.

"No," they say in unison.

"Maybe she went to get ice," my mother says.

And then both women, at the same moment, notice
John and his red cheek and the scratch under his eye.

My mother charges forward. "What happened to
you?" she asks, all in a dither.

Eleanor glances at me suspiciously. I still can't muster
any guilt.

"I walked into a door," he says, waving my mother
away. "I'm fine." He turns to me. "I handed you the car
keys in the lobby," he says. "Are they in your room?"

I turn back and run to my room. The keys are gone.
"Elspa is gone," I say.

My mother and Eleanor are ready to go. The pee-pee
paper has been disposed of. Bogie's been left. They have
their pocketbooks. We all rush to the elevator.

My mother says that she and Eleanor will stay in the
lobby, waiting. "Someone should always stay put in these
situations."

"I'll get the concierge to call a cab," I say, though I
have no idea where to say we're going.

"I'll check the parking lot for the car," John says. "Just
to be sure."

We all rush from the elevator. John stops at the edge of
the hotel awning. He can see from there that the car is
gone and reports this with a shake of his head. The good
news is there's a cab right there, letting out a couple who
look like they've been to a wedding.

John talks to the cabbie. Eleanor and my mother are
standing outside the entranceway of the hotel in front of
the automatic sliding glass doors, setting them off.

"Do you think we should call someone?" my mother
asks.

"Who would we call?" John says.

"Where are you going to go?" Eleanor asks. "It's a big
city."

"We should have faith in her," my mother adds. "I'm
sure she'll make good decisions!"

John and I get in the backseat of the cab. He tells the
driver to head toward Charles Village, which is the area of
town near the burned-out building. The cab picks up
speed, merges into traffic.

John tries to catch my eyes. "I didn't know how to tell
you, and if you'll let me explain you'll see why."

"Not now," I say. "I can't deal with any of that now."
What is there to say? He's been faking being Artie's son
for his entire life, and he's been lying to Elspa, my mother,
Eleanor, and me so that he can cash in. I don't want to
hear that. I learned from Artie's confessions that you
shouldn't ask too many questions. Betrayal is betrayal.
You don't want details. "In fact, when we find Elspa, you
can just go home."

"Go home?"

"There's no money. You aren't Artie's son. That's it."

"This has nothing to do with money," he says.

"You know what you can do that would actually
help me?"

"No."

"When I wake up tomorrow morning, it would be
very nice if you weren't here," I tell him.

"Is that my only option?"

I nod. "For the time being, I want to focus on Elspa.
You're a distraction, that's all. Can you do me that favor
and just leave?"

He sighs, leans back in the seat with his hands on his
knees. "Okay, if that's the only option," he says.

"Thanks."

John sits forward in his seat and explains to the cabbie
where to go. "Just loop around here," he says.

"I don't pick up hookers on drugs," the cabbie says
matter-of-factly.

"No, we're looking for someone who's lost."

Lost?
She isn't lost. She isn't a child. Has she left us?
Abandoned the whole thing? Abandoned her daughter
again, in this new way, by giving up?

We circle several blocks in silence. My eyes dart from
one car to the next, one dim figure to the next, and then
John says, "Isn't that your car?"

It is. We watch it turn around a corner, back toward
the major road that leads to the highway. I can see the outline
of Elspa's spiked hair. John tells the cabbie to follow
her. We wind along all the way back to the hotel. She pulls
into the parking lot.

Once the cabbie has stopped the car, I jump out, but
then stop short. What am I going to say? Am I angry at
her? Am I just relieved? As she makes her way toward the
hotel entranceway, Eleanor and my mother, who were on
guard, are there, too.

Elspa hands me the keys. "I'm sorry I borrowed your
car without asking," she says, as if this is the only thing to
apologize for. She walks through the doors into the hotel.

The rest of us exchange a confused glance and then
follow her to the elevator. She's pushed the button. We're
all waiting.

"Where did you go, dear?" my mother asks.

"I had to get close to it," she says.

I know she means she had to get close to her addiction,
to test herself, to make sure she was strong. Sometimes
I feel that way about Artie—mostly I know that
I'm not strong enough and so I've had to keep my distance.
Everyone else must be translating this in their own
way. We're quiet. The elevator doors open. We all step
inside.

"We were worried," I say, though I cringe, afraid this
comes out overly maternal and chiding.

"I was worried, too," she says.

We step off the elevator and follow her to our door.
She can't find her key, so we all wait for a moment. I don't
want her to get out of this so quickly.

Finally, she says, "How can I sell my parents on the
idea of me as a mother if I'm not sold myself? I can't talk
to them about it. I'm not tough."

As Elspa starts to sob, my mother puts her arms
around her. I slip the card key into the lock and we all step
inside the room. John stands there awkwardly, not sure
what his role is now—should he stay? Should he go?

And I'm wondering where my toughness has gotten
me. Nowhere—only cut off, shut down. Elspa is the
strongest of all of us. "Forget all of my strategies," I say,
feeling a jagged tightness in my throat. "Forget I said anything.
Speak from the heart. Tell them what you want.
What you're afraid of. Tell them everything. Honestly.
Don't shut yourself off. Feel it. Feel all of it!" For some
reason, I feel furious. I feel like throwing the TV out the
window and overturning furniture. "What good does it
do not to feel anything? People lie to you and disappoint
you." I'm shouting now, my eyes shut tight. "You find out
your son-of-a-bitch husband is a serial cheater, and if
that's not enough, next thing you know he's going to
abandon you—just up and die. And if you don't feel that,
then you won't ever feel anything. Bad or good, ever
again. So, fuck it! Feel it—all of it!"

When I open my eyes, I find that I must have slid
down the hotel wall because I'm sitting on the carpeting.
They're all staring at me, stunned. There's a moment of
silence.

"Okay," John says. "New plan. Feel all of it."

This breaks the tension. I wipe my nose and almost
smile. Elspa laughs nervously.

"Can you go in there tomorrow and face them?" I ask.

Elspa nods.

"Okay," my mother says.

"Good," Eleanor says.

Having felt everything at once, an upheaval of the
heart, a cavalcade of hate and love and betrayal, I say,
"The new plan."

*

After Elspa falls asleep, I walk to the bank of windows,
look out at the restless harbor lights. I've been here on
business a bunch of times, but only once with Artie—a
day trip about two years ago. We whiled away much of the
day in the aquarium, gazing at the blue poison dart frogs
and the shy scarlet ibis. Artie argued politics with the
yellow-headed Amazon parrot that, despite its investment
in the environment, was a vicious Republican—at least according
to Artie. The pygmy marmoset, which Artie said
had a striking resemblance to his Uncle Victor, stared at
us, cocking its little head, until we felt sure we were the
ones on display and it was the observer. Later, we rented a
paddle boat, toured the harbor, our thighs knotting up,
and made out in it like teenagers, the boat dipping and
bobbing.

I call Artie. I'm expecting the night nurse, but it's his
voice. "Lucy?" he says.

"Were you waiting up for me?" I speak quietly.

"Yes."

"I feel different," I say, without any idea how to explain
it.

"Different how?"

"I've been so wrong." I want to add: about a lot of
things. I think of slapping John Bessom, but I can't tell
Artie anything about John's lies. That's not my secret
to tell.

"How? What's wrong?"

"I've been so practical about my emotions for a while
now, trying not to be emotional. But it's not working. I
can't make it through all of this and continue to try to feel
even less. It'll be the end of me. I have to feel all of it."

"All right," he says. "Wait a minute. If you're feeling
more, does this mean you're going to hate me more?"

"Maybe, but I might love you more, too."

There's a pause. He's taking this in. "When I said I
was despairing, I was despairing mostly because of you.
All other forms of despair are minuscule in comparison,"
he says. "And if there's anything I can do to help you love
me again, let me know."

"Are you accepting the fact that you hurt a lot of
women in your life? That's what I'd like to know."

"I can't ever accept the fact that I hurt you, that I was
the kind of person who would ever hurt you. I'll never accept
that." But I know that men are liars. Just in case I
forgot, for a moment—just in case I'd had a lapse and
trusted one again—John Bessom has set me straight. Still,
I want to believe Artie. I start to cry—the silent kind
of crying—just tears slipping down my cheeks. And
unfortunately, I do believe him in some way. I know he
loves me, has always loved me. Maybe I'm feeling some
kind of relief, some strange kind of acceptance of Artie,
of men. "Remember the pygmy marmoset at the aquarium?"
I ask.

"Of course. Why?"

"It's just that I'm here. Thinking of that trip with you
and the marmoset that you thought was your uncle."

"I've decided I might believe in reincarnation," Artie
says. "When you're dying, you get to think of things like
that a little more earnestly. Maybe that marmoset
was
my
Uncle Victor. I want to come back as your lapdog."

"They tend to be yappy."

"I won't be. I promise. I'll be one of the few
Chihuahuas to take a vow of silence. I'll be a monastic
Chihuahua, or maybe a mute one. And I won't even leg-hump
dinner guests."

I laugh a little. "Well, now you're making promises
you know you won't be able to keep."

"Tell me something more. Anything at all. I just want
to listen to your voice for a little while longer."

"I should go. That's really all I had to say—about feeling
more."

"Don't go. Tell me something. A story. A bedtime
story designed for a lapdog Chihuahua. Make something
up."

I think of the opening lines to
The Beverly Hillbillies
theme song—
a story 'bout a man named Jed.
I suddenly
feel like I've lost so much and I'm only bound to lose
more. My throat aches.

"Or a lullaby," he says. "That would work, too."

"I've missed you all this time," I say.

"Is that part of your made-up story?"

"No," I say. "That's the truth."

"I've missed you all this time, too."

"Good night," I say.

"Good night."