Smart Women (22 page)

Margo and Andrew dropped Michelle and Stuart at the airport in Denver. It had been Andrew’s idea to drive to L.A. and, of course, Margo did whatever Andrew wanted. Well, that was their business. As long as she and Stuart didn’t have to spend twenty-four hours in the back seat of Margo’s Subaru listening to the lovebirds, who cared? Every time he called Margo
Margarita,
Michelle gagged.

God, it was so strange bumping into B.B. at the airport. Michelle thought that B.B. was going to pass out when she saw them. She hung on to this guy, Lewis something or other, as if he were her lifeline. He was older, but not bad. He had a nice smile. B.B. looked really sophisticated. She had her hair pulled back, showing off gold earrings, and she was carrying one of those expensive bags you see in
New Yorker
ads.

Michelle could not understand what Andrew saw in her mother after having been married to someone like B.B. Although, Michelle had to admit, B.B. was not the friendliest person around. When she introduced Lewis she said, “Lewis, this is Andrew, my former husband.” And that was it. She acted as if the rest of them didn’t exist.

But Margo offered her hand, saying, “I’m Margo Sampson and these are my children, Stuart and Michelle.” Michelle was really proud of her mother then. If only Margo hadn’t been wearing her faded jeans and that baggy sweater.

There was this awkward moment when no one said anything, and then everyone spoke at once. Finally they parted and walked off in opposite directions.

“God,” she said to Stuart when they were on the plane, “I’ll bet that really shook up Andrew.”

“What?”

“Meeting his ex-wife and her new boyfriend.”

“He’s tough,” Stuart said, yawning.

“Don’t you wish we were going to Hawaii instead of Aunt Bethany’s? Hawaii sounds so exotic.” When she looked over at Stuart for some reaction she saw that he had fallen asleep. She didn’t see how anyone could sleep on a plane, but Stuart was out cold and they had barely taken off.

She clutched her canvas purse. Gemini had loaned her gobs of jewelry to wear to the anniversary party and she was worried that if she lost it she would never be able to repay her. Michelle was going to do herself up for the party. Maybe she would meet someone exciting there. Not a poet or a true intellectual, because Aunt Bethany wouldn’t know anyone like that, but possibly a movie star. Since Uncle Harvey was some big deal at one of the studios she was sure there would be some movie star types at the party. Not that she was interested in movie stars, because they wouldn’t know the way of the world, but just for the night it might be interesting.

She took out her copy of
The Book of Daniel
and began to read. She wished her parents had done something dramatic with their lives, like Daniel’s had.

23

G
OING TO
F
LORIDA FOR TWO WEEKS
was supposed to be a privilege. That’s what Sara’s mother told her. Sara didn’t think it was such a privilege. Her mother had gone to Hawaii for the holidays to a place called Maui. Now that sounded like a privilege. Her mother should have invited her to go too. Not that she’d have gone, but she should have been invited. And her father! She’d spent every Christmas vacation with him since the divorce. But this year he was in Los Angeles with Margo. And he hadn’t invited her either. It was just like Jennifer said. You couldn’t trust parents. They were only interested in you when they didn’t have anyone else. As soon as they had lovers, forget it.

“They’d probably get rid of us completely, if they could,” Jennifer had said.

“What do you mean, completely?” Sara asked. “Do you mean they wish we were dead?”

Jennifer laughed her head off. “No, stupid. They’d never go that far. Then they’d feel guilty for the rest of their lives. They’re really subtle about it. What they do is, they send us away to school, except they act like it’s for our own good instead of theirs. They say stuff like,
Wouldn’t you like to go away to school next year . . . someplace where you could get a really fine education. You’d get to meet lots of interesting new people . . . people from all over the world . . .

“And you say
No.

“So they say,
But think of it in terms of expanding your horizons . . .

“And you still say
No.

“So then they say,
Well, we think you should give it a try, at least for one year . . .

“And you say,
I won’t go and you can’t make me.

“And they say,
It’s already settled. We’ve paid the tuition and you leave on August fifteenth.
”

“Nobody is trying to send me away to school,” Sara said.

“Yet,” Jennifer said. “They wait until you’re going into ninth grade or even tenth. That’s how they did it with my sisters. And I know they’re going to do it with me too. I’ll bet you anything I’m going to be sent to the same school my mother went to when she was a girl.”

“Where is it?” Sara asked.

“In Virginia. I’ll be able to have my own horse.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“The horse is the only good part of it.”

S
O
S
ARA WENT TO
F
LORIDA
and spent the first week of her vacation with Grandma and Grandpa Broder. They wanted to hear all about Daddy and Margo.

“What does Margo look like?” Grandma Broder asked.

“She’s all right. Not as pretty as Mom.”

“A nice figure?” Grandpa Broder asked.

“Okay,” Sara said. “Not as skinny as Mom.”

“You like her . . . she’s nice to you?”

“She’s okay.”

“You didn’t bring a picture of her?” Grandma asked.

“No.” Why should she have brought a picture of Margo? Who cared what Margo looked like anyway? It was just a passing fancy. That’s what her mother told her. Sara really liked that expression—a passing fancy. It was just a convenient place for Daddy to live while he wrote his book. So why were her grandparents making such a big thing out of it? Unless they knew something she didn’t. Oh, she hated grownups and all their secrets!

It was the same at Grandma Goldy’s and Uncle Morris’s the next week. They wanted to hear all about her Thanksgiving trip to Minneapolis. She didn’t tell them anything except that Minneapolis had been so cold her lips had been blue the whole time. And she told them that Lewis was seventeen years older than her mother. But they already knew.

Sara did not want to spend her vacation answering questions about her parents. She wanted to swim and play with the other kids who were down visiting their grandparents. If they were going to talk at all then Sara wanted to talk about
her
life. And she wanted them to tell her what a wonderful kid she was and how they hoped her parents appreciated her and that if ever her parents weren’t paying enough attention to her she could fly right back to Florida.

“You’re getting little bosoms,” Grandma Goldy said, the first time Sara put on her one-piece Speedo. “Pretty soon you’ll have all the boys after you, just like your mother.”

Sara wanted to shout that she was nothing like her mother. And that the boys weren’t even interested in her. They all liked Ellen Anders, who was always in trouble in school and who took Quaaludes every weekend.

24

B
.B
. FELT WONDERFULLY REMOVED IN
M
AUI,
with just the sun and the sea and Lewis, adoring her, making her feel young and beautiful, making her feel that her whole life was ahead of her. She remembered Andrew once saying,
Fuck responsibilities!
Well, maybe that’s exactly what she would do.

She’d been proud of herself at the airport. She had really been in control. The night before she had phoned Andrew, had shouted at him.

“What do you want?” he’d asked.

She’d thought about saying,
I want you back,
but that was too demeaning and she wasn’t even sure it was true, so she’d said, “I want you out of my life. I want you off my turf. Sara is mine.”

“She’s ours,” he’d answered.

“No, not here. Here she belongs to me.” Then she had slammed down the receiver.

She phoned their house at odd hours, when she thought they might be talking about her or making love. She hated the idea of them in bed together, snuggled close, Margo’s head on his chest. She hated the idea of him telling Margo stories about their marriage, sharing the most intimate details of their lives. Sometimes she would phone in the middle of the night, then hang up. She didn’t want to phone. She didn’t want to show them that she cared, that knowing they were together hurt, but she couldn’t stop herself. If only he would go away. If Margo loved him so much let her go with him. Love . . . the idea of it made her laugh.

She and Lewis made love every afternoon. Sometimes she would keep her eyes open and stare at the lovely designs on the ceiling of their villa. Sometimes she would become confused and think that Lewis was her father. There was something about his hands, something so familiar. She came close to calling him Daddy several times, but caught herself in time. Lewis was older than her father had been when he had died. She couldn’t remember exactly how old her father had been then. She could remember only that her mother had told her he had died in some girl’s bed. Some girl with red hair. Poor and Irish. But maybe her mother had made that up because her mother had been having an affair with Uncle Morris, hadn’t she? She remembered her father accusing her mother of doing it with her own sister’s husband. But none of it mattered. Because Daddy had loved
her
best. She had been his darling, his Francie. And now Lewis loved her the same way.

One afternoon, after making love, B.B. said, “I never tell anybody anything . . . you know that? I’m a very secretive person.”

“You’re the most together person I’ve ever known,” Lewis said.

“You think so?” B.B. asked.

“I know so,” Lewis said.

“I have a cloud that sometimes forms around my head, making everything fuzzy.”

“You should see an ophthalmologist when you get back. Sounds like you need glasses.” He kissed her fingers then, one by one.

B.B. laughed, could not stop laughing. She laughed until her body ached. Lewis didn’t know. Lewis had no idea. And she was not going to spoil it by telling him about herself, by taking the chance that if he knew what she was really like he would stop loving her.

“I may never leave here,” she said one day, as she oiled her legs.

“B.B., darling, if that’s what you want I can make arrangements. Let’s look for a place, a glass house on the ocean. What do you say?”

“Oh, Lewis, would you honestly do anything to please me?”

“Yes,” he said seriously, sitting on the edge of her lounge chair. “Yes, I would.”

“There’s so much about me you don’t know.”

“If you want me to know, you’ll tell me. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter.”

She had not yet told him about Bobby.

She wondered if she could spend the rest of her life pretending. Pretending to be happy. Pretending to be the most together person he had ever known. It was so hard to pretend. It took up almost all of her energy. Sometimes she felt so tired from pretending that she just wanted to let go, to slip away quietly, to let the warm ocean water cover her and carry her away.

“Marry me,” Lewis said. “Marry me right now.”

25