Nell (16 page)

“Come on?” Ilona asked. “Where? Where are we going, Nell? Tell me, so I’ll know what to wear.”

Nell handed an armful of clothes to Arlene, who was standing, fascinated, just outside the dressing room. “Charge these to Mrs. Shell, Arlene, and box them, please. And the other clothes she’s given you.” She pulled the dressing room curtain closed again. She turned to Ilona. “Ilona,” she said. “Stop. Stop right now.”

Ilona collapsed in Nell’s arms, which made Nell feel rather silly, since Ilona in high heels stood a good five inches taller than she and, with all her blond hair, seemed even taller. But she felt so sorry for Ilona, who was now sobbing onto her shoulder, saying, “I want to die, Nell. I just want to die. I want to die.”

“Well, you aren’t going to,” Nell said. “I won’t let you.” She staggered slightly. Ilona was a slender woman, thin to the point of emaciation, but she had dropped her entire drunken weight on Nell’s shoulders, and Nell’s knees were buckling. “Look,” she said and gently shoved Ilona into the wrought-iron chair. “Sit down. Blow your nose. Get dressed. I’ll send Arlene for some coffee, and we can talk in the office.”

But no sooner had Arlene returned with the coffee than the UPS man arrived with some orders and some customers came in. Nell got Ilona into the office, gave her the coffee, asked her to wait. When she got back to the office about fifteen minutes later, she found Ilona passed out, her head resting in the middle of the papers on the desk. Nell didn’t mind. That made it possible for her to call Jeremy. He was fine and hadn’t thrown up again. Nell got some of the dresses unwrapped, priced, and hung up, and Ilona’s dressing room cleaned up before lunch hour. Then she went down the street for coffee and yogurt, went back to the office, and woke Ilona up.

“Christ,” Ilona said, raising her head off the desk. “My head feels like a pumpkin.”

“Looks like it, too,” Nell said. “Here, drink this. And here are some aspirin. Do you want to talk, or would you rather just go home?” Nell sat down in a chair across from Ilona.

“Home,” Ilona said. “Ha. No, I do not want to just go home. I guess I want to talk. I’m sorry to dump all this on you, Nell, but do you realize you’re the only person in the world I can have a fit at? Everyone else I know, from Phillip and his relatives and his friends on, is so
—recessed
.”

“I think you mean repressed,” Nell said.

Ilona considered. “No. I think I mean recessed. I mean that anything and everything that is of the slightest real importance to them is hidden away in a little drawer in their minds, shut off in a cranny behind a maze behind locked doors and steel walls.”

“Ugh,” Nell said sympathetically.

“And I’m so
tired
of trying to get through,” Ilona said. “Do you know something, Nell? I love Phillip. Now I know that will come as some surprise to you, because I know what you think of him—no, don’t try to tell me otherwise, I can see your beady critical mind picking away at him every time he enters the room. Phillip is a pompous prig, I know that. Don’t you think I know that? After nineteen years of marriage? I know that. But I love him anyway. And I
want
him so much.”

“But, Ilona, you have him,” Nell said.

“No I don’t,” Ilona said. “No I don’t, not at all. Never have, never will. My mistake, in wasting this much time trying. Twenty years.” Ilona hung her head, was quiet for a few moments. When she lifted her head, her eyes were full of tears. “Nell,” she said, “I’m sorry about the scene here. Really. It’s just that I’m so frantic. I have an appointment with a lawyer this afternoon, and I’m going to go through with it, I’m going to get a divorce. I’m a beautiful woman—people tell me I’m a beautiful woman—and I’m not as dumb as I look, and there’s got to be more for me to do in life than give dinner parties for Phillip and wear clothes.”

“Your children—” Nell began.

“My children are both in prep school, and Lindsey starts college next year. Aaron goes to Europe this summer. They don’t need me anymore, not in the old way.”

“Have you tried to talk to Phillip about all this?”

“Nell, I have tried to talk to him for so long that it’s pathetic. I’ve tried to talk to him about it for years. I’ve done everything but send him a mimeographed letter every month. It’s always the same: I nag him to give me more of himself and he looks puzzled and says coolly, ‘But I don’t understand.’ ”

“Well now, Ilona,” Nell said. “I don’t know Phillip very well, but he does seem to be a more—recessed—person than you.”

“Psychologically, he’s absolutely anal,” Ilona said.

“All right. That’s a given, then. And you are, well, the opposite extreme. Passionate, demanding, impatient.”

“That’s the way you know me, Nell. But you’ve seen me in my house at my parties. You have to admit I can be pretty cool. I can be as aloof as anyone. I can be controlled. I can wait. I’m not a maniac.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Nell agreed. “I know.”

“Nell,” Ilona said. “I fell in love with Phillip the moment I saw him. I became obsessed with him. I spent two years doing nothing but manipulating him into marrying me. You never saw anyone as cool as I was then—you’re an actress, you would have appreciated the performance! Then I spent nineteen years with this man, loving him, touching him, talking to him, being there for him—Nell, do you know what I do? Do you
know
what I do? When he goes out of town for a few days, I keep his dirty underwear by my pillow and I smell it. Look at me! I’m a beautiful, wealthy woman and I sneak around my own house holding Phillip’s soiled underwear to my face, breathing in its fragrance as if it were life.
That’s
how I feel about Phillip. And yes, he did marry me, but he has never once given me a fraction of the passion I’ve given him. My psychiatrist says that some people just don’t know how. Some people just can’t. Phillip is one of those people. Oh God, for so long I thought it was
me
. I went through hell thinking Phillip told other people his secrets, lost control sexually with some other woman, went just slightly berserk with another woman, that it was
me
he couldn’t love. But thank God Dr. Kletterman helped me get that straight. Phillip is a person without passion. Jesus, he’s practically without
blood
. And I can’t go on with him any longer. I finally told him I was going to divorce him—and he didn’t even fight it. He said, ‘If that’s what you want.’ IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT! I could knife him to death. I could easily just knife him
to
death
! I would love to dig a knife into his bony chest and see if there really is a heart in there.”

“Ilona,” Nell began.

“His father died,” Ilona said. “We went to the funeral. Phillip did not cry. He was the perfect host later, making elegant dry martinis. His mother died. He did not cry. He did not shed a tear. If
I
died, he would not cry. If his children died, he would not cry. He has no tears in him. He’s all dried up. He was born dried up. I thought that over the years, if I loved and caressed and nurtured him, I’d—I’d change him a little bit. But no. No. Nell, I even bought leather underwear, leather boots. I mean, it’s the same with our sex; he’s
recessed
. Sex only made him retreat even further into his shell; he couldn’t even get it up. He likes his sex twice a week, after we’ve showered! Now you
know
he’s crazy. You know he’s a little crazy. And I’m more than a little crazy if I put up with it anymore! I’ve got to get out while I’ve got some energy and sanity left. And I
am
going to do it. I am determined to do it. It’s just that—I’m so scared. Nell. Please. Help me.”

“Oh, honey,” Nell said. “I’ll try to help you. But look, right now I have to get back to work. And you have to get cleaned up and get ready for your lawyer’s appointment. Come over to the house tonight and we’ll have a celebratory meal and drink champagne to your new life. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ilona said. “Great. Nell—thanks.”

Ilona tidied herself up, gathered up her packages, and left the store. Nell finished off her afternoon, working with the efficiency of a robot. She was tired. She was also a little cranky. She cared for Ilona, but in her heart of hearts, she also resented her a little. Ilona had so much—beauty, a husband who loved her the best he could, in his own stodgy, reliable, and faithful way, and more money than anyone would ever need. And here Ilona was, throwing herself into Nell’s care, asking Nell to help her. Nell kept looking at her reflection in the mirror, wondering what it was about her that made people come to her as to some wise old nurse. Elizabeth’s words earlier that morning: Nell was so
reliable
.

Good old helpful reliable wise old Nell. Nurse Nell. Nanny Nell. Nerd Nell.

Nell hoped Ilona would have the sense to bring the champagne. She didn’t feel like cooking dinner for Ilona. Since Jeremy was sick, she would have preferred to feed
him clear soup, saltines, and ginger ale, and Hannah would have the same, or feel ill-treated. Nell would have preferred to drink a beer, fix any old sandwich, and get into bed with a book and a bowl of popcorn after this day. She thought of calling Ilona, of postponing the dinner; she had a good excuse with Jeremy home sick. Why did she always think she had to fix a dinner for a sad friend?

But then she thought of Ilona’s tears, Ilona’s face. And she remembered a woman she had known only briefly in Vancouver.

Marlow had been teaching in Boston then, but he had a summer job as guest professor at a university in Vancouver. It was a beautiful place to spend the summer, and Marlow got to direct three plays of his choice. It should have been a marvelous summer, but Hannah was newborn and Jeremy was just two. The university in Vancouver had found them a rental house in Capilano for the two months. It was a fine house, but isolated, and Marlow had to go off with the car every day. So it was the same old story familiar to many women: the mother stuck at home in a strange place all day with two babies. Nell knew it was for only eight weeks: still, she was miserable. Vancouver was so beautiful; she could
feel
it spreading all around her in its beauty, and she was imprisoned in the little rental house with babies and bottles and diapers and rash. Of course the children got sick. Of course Jeremy fell, just fell off a rock and cut his leg open. Of course it rained a lot. Nell thought she would have died, would have been one of those mothers who kill their children and then themselves, leaving a note saying:
Life isn’t worth living
. But the next-door neighbor, a woman named Jackie Grant, saved her. She drove Nell and Jeremy to a doctor when Jeremy cut his leg. She invited Nell over for lazy, sloppy meals with her own family on the nights—and there were so many of them—when Marlow worked late. When she could manage it, for Jackie had three children of her own, she drove Nell and all their children out to parks for afternoon outings. When the time came for them to go back to Boston, Jackie watched Nell’s children all day so Nell could pack and clean the rental house.

“You have been so kind,” Nell said finally to Jackie that afternoon before she left. She had felt her throat swollen with emotion as she spoke. “You have probably literally saved my life. I don’t understand it. You have given me so much, and there is no way in the world I can ever repay you. I probably won’t ever see you again.”

“Listen: my husband is with an insurance company,” Jackie said, smiling. “We’ve made eleven moves in nine years. I had three children in those nine years. And
I
would have died if strangers hadn’t helped me.

“Once we were in Windsor, a town in the middle of Canada, across the river from Detroit. We were very poor. I had just had my third child, and my life was nothing but food and milk and diapers. I had just moved into the neighborhood—corporations move you at their convenience, not yours. I gave birth to my third child in a town where I knew no one. We were living in a rental apartment. I just stayed in that apartment and took care of my children and sobbed all day every day.

“Then one day, when my baby was about a month old, someone knocked on the door. It was a woman I had seen only briefly, a woman who lived in the apartment across the hall. She worked. She was always on her way to work in some wonderful dress with matching shoes. I couldn’t imagine what she wanted. She said she wondered if I might like to take a day off. She would come watch the children for me for the day. I could go off and wander, or use her apartment to sleep or read—whatever.

“Well, I thought she was mad. I was afraid she’d kidnap the children or something. But the offer—I couldn’t refuse it. So I let her babysit for me. I went out and walked all over Windsor, along the river, looking over at the city of Detroit, gaining perspective, thinking of how things could and would change with time and distance. I hadn’t had time to think like that for years. I couldn’t have had a better day if God had personally visited me.

“When I got home, I asked her how I could possibly repay her. She said she was moving to Ottawa in a week. We probably wouldn’t see each other again. I was so puzzled, I really did think she was mad. I looked around the apartment: she had managed to clean it a bit. The children were happy. I said, ‘I don’t understand.’

“She said, ‘I’m an executive, but not a rich one. I’ve had to move a lot with my firm. Along the way perfect strangers have been helpful to me in ways I could never repay. Of course I’ve been helpful to you. I wish I could be more helpful. I’ve heard you crying. I’m sorry I’m leaving. At least I gave you today. And of course you can’t repay me. But you can pass it along. Someday you can do a kindness for a stranger who won’t be able to repay you. It’s like a chain letter, you see. It will eventually get back to me in
the end.’

“So, Nell, that’s what I’m doing. I’m repaying that woman executive. I’m passing some kindness along. And your turn will come to do the same someday.”

Now Nell thought: Ilona was no stranger, but still Nell knew she should pass some kindness along. So she sighed, shut up the boutique, and headed for her car, thinking, all right, Jackie, okay. I’ll make some kind of dinner for Ilona tonight.