The Women's Room (62 page)

‘Why were you embarrassed?’ Clark asked finally.

‘Yeah,’ Norm said. ‘It’s nice you have someone to love you. I wish I did,’ his voice trailed off.

I love
you, she was about to say, then closed her mouth. Her heart hit hard against itself. That was it. That lay beneath all the lies. Mother loves you, son, but she can’t screw you, you can’t screw her. It’s against the rules. But she knows that to prove her love, she must not screw anyone else; you must therefore not screw anyone else either. And we will all live happily ever after in a paradise where no one even has genitals.

‘It’s true, he does seem to love me.’ Her voice sounded high and childlike and incredulous.

‘Why shouldn’t he?’ Clark’s voice out of the darkness sounded tough compared to hers. ‘You’re beautiful!’

‘I’m not beautiful, Clark …’

‘To me you are!’ he answered fiercely.

She listened; she heard love and loyalty and she felt almost as if she had been wearing a mudpack and had sat in the sun, and the thing had hardened and cracked and all of a sudden, fallen off.

‘Maybe I’ll call him.’

They were silent. It was after eleven, and no doubt they were not eager for visitors. But suddenly she did not care what they wanted. They had asked her to be herself. They would accept that. And what she was, wanted Ben. She stood up, excited, the excitement coming through in her voice. ‘I’ll call him. He may be asleep, or he may be out, but I think I’ll just give him a ring.’

5

He answered the phone in a tired voice, and when she said, a little timidly, ‘Ben?’ his voice went tight and hard.

‘Yeah.’

‘Ben, I see it all now. Oh, well, maybe I don’t see it all. But I see something. I would very much like to have you come over and meet my boys.’

‘You’re sure I won’t pollute them,’ he said bitterly, and it was only then that she realized how hurt he had been.

‘Oh, Ben.’ Her voice was full of tears. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll be right there,’ he said.

And came in twenty minutes later, charging like a brisk wind, and talked to them about football and baseball and school and lousy teachers. They were stiff at first, then grew easier and talked in a lively way, then started to yawn – it was after twelve – and grew, finally, simply bored. Enough adult talk. They drifted off to bed, and Mira looked at Ben and he at her, and they moved toward each other the way they had the first night they made love, gracefully, naturally, both moving toward the couch, and sitting, a little apart, just looking at each other for a while, then reaching out for the other’s hands. They did not speak at all. They heard one boy, then another, in the bathroom, heard the light click off, the bedroom door close, and after a few minutes, total silence. Then they embraced, and Mira found her cheeks wet and herself blubbering, ‘Oh, God, how I’ve missed you!’ and Ben rubbed his cheeks against hers so one could not tell if he was wet from her or from himself and blubbering too, said, ‘I felt exiled to Siberia.’

Then they could not contain themselves, they could not contain their hands, and soon they were making love, right there on the living room couch and in a living room without a door, with the boys sleeping just down the hall. She could not understand herself, but she did not stop to try: at the time, making love was the only thing that mattered to her. But afterward, after many hours and a few cigarettes, and a drink, Ben got up and dressed to go home.

‘You don’t have to go,’ she said desperately, clutching his arm. ‘I don’t feel that way anymore … I … I don’t want you to go.’

‘Sweetheart, this couch isn’t even very comfortable to sit on, much less to sleep on. But if two of us try to sleep on it, we’ll both need a
chiropractor tomorrow. And since I don’t approve of chiropractors, I think I’d better go home.’

‘Go home then, you shit,’ she murmured lovingly, sleepily. ‘Knowing,’ she turned over on her back and spread her arms and legs, ‘knowing you have abandoned the woman who loves you to the cold, the isolation, the loneliness of an empty bed.’

He bent and kissed her gently. ‘Good,’ he hissed viciously. ‘It serves her right.’

She kissed him back. ‘Just be sure to be here at six tomorrow night for dinner, or else! …’

Next day, she asked the boys for their reactions to Ben. They agreed he was ‘okay.’ He was even nice, they finally admitted. They had met some boys in a neighboring house: would she mind if they did not go sightseeing that day, but went to the neighborhood park and played ball?

Wonderful!

She got on the phone and called all her friends, but only Val and Iso were in town. She invited them for dinner. Then she went to Savenor’s and loaded up her shopping cart. She had not bought so much food since she was married and planning a party. She was in an ecstasy of bliss. The sun shone, she hummed, she drove back like a blessed madwoman, narrowly missing accidents by swerving the car with the tempos of her body. She carried the heavy bags up the two flights to her apartment without gasping for breath. She turned on the radio: violins poured out a waltz. She danced into the kitchen, unloaded her purchases, put beef bones in a great pot to simmer, and began to wash and chop vegetables. Sun was pouring through the kitchen windows. Outside she heard small children playing, arguing down in the yard over the water hose.

Peace cupped her heart and held it gently.

Smiling, she stood at the kitchen sink, holding a bunch of string beans in her hand, letting herself be part of it: part of the gold streaming over the kitchen, part of the mellow surge of the waltz, part of the green of the trees bowing outside the window. It was beauty and peace, the child noises outside, the delicious simmering aroma of the soup, the fresh liquid green smell of the string beans. Her home was humming happy and bright, and Ben – sexy, exciting Ben – was coming at six. It was happiness.

She brought herself upright. My God! She dropped the string beans, dried her hands, sank into a chair, and lighted a cigarette. It was the
American Dream, female version. Was she still buying it? She didn’t even like to cook, she resented marketing, she didn’t really like the music that was sweeping through the apartment. But she still believed in it: the dream stood of the happy humming house. Why should she be so happy doing work that had no purpose, no end, while the boys were off playing and Ben was off doing work that would bring him success, work that mattered?

She got up and skimmed the broth, pondering the question, but she could not keep the joy out, it invaded her again like sun pouring over her head and arms. The boys came home for something to drink.

‘How about keeping me company?’

‘Sure! Can we cook?’ Norm asked eagerly.

She handed him the string beans and a vegetable knife and told him how to cut them. She set Clark to chiffonade the cabbage. She was careful not to watch them work, remembering her own mother’s untrusting surveillance of her at chores, and her resulting hatred of helping in the kitchen.

‘Yick!’ Clark shouted in disgust. She looked up dismayed from the onions she was peeling.

‘What is it?’

‘That soupy music! Wet-dream music: isn’t that what Iso calls it?’

She laughed. ‘Get what you want. Just not too loud.’ He went into the living room, fiddled with the radio, and found Joni Mitchell. He came back into the kitchen singing with her, softly, under his breath. Norm joined in. They finished the song with her, singing in faint sweet voices. Mira’s eyes were wet as she sliced. One of them noticed it.

‘Just the onions,’ she smiled radiantly, then dropped her knife and embraced them both with her oniony hands, and they embraced her, the three of them standing there for some minutes. Then Mira went back to business.

‘Shit! There’s not enough oil.’

‘Want me to go around to Zolli’s?’

A small grocery store stood only two blocks from where Mira lived. However, on their first visit, her spoiled suburban children had refused to walk so far for more milk; they went only when they ran out of soda. But this time, Clark went with no complaint. Then she discovered she was out of salt: Norm went. An hour later, Clark went for more soda, then Norm went when she discovered she was low on coffee. The fifth time – both of them balked. She looked at them ready to sermonize, to remind them of their past spoiledness
and laziness. But she had to laugh first: ‘I guess I have a rotten memory.’

Clark said, ‘I don’t mind going, Mom, but that’s a little store and the old guy that runs it is a grouch and when you come in again,’ Clark began to giggle, ‘he looks at you like you’re crazy!’

Norm croaked, his voice still breaking, ‘Yeah! Three times in one day!’

She laughed and forgot her sermon. They weren’t lazy, they were embarrassed. She lifted her chin and pretended to grande-dame-ism. ‘Tell them your mother is eccentric.’

The boys laughed and went off together.

Ben came at five thirty with a bottle of wine, and she kissed him in front of her sons. Iso came in smiling and cornered the boys with talk of baseball, and a bet. Val came alone: Chris was having dinner with Bart’s ‘aunt,’ and Tad was visiting his parents for a few days. She challenged Ben immediately on some political issue, and Mira grinned over the stove as they argued. It was not the American Dream: it was much freer, much wilder.

She was proud of her dinner. They had a fine Brie, and good black olives with their drinks; then minestrone; then veau poêlé and brown rice and asparagus and a salad of spinach, avocado, and mushrooms with blue cheese dressing; then chilled grapes and melon. The meal went splendidly, and after dinner, the boys accepted the chore of dishes without balking. She went into the living room with Val and Iso and Ben and the remains of the wine, feeling warm and filled and content, and tried, in the back of her mind, to figure out what it was, content. And what it had to do with the American Dream. But her mind was too limpid with pleasure to work sharply. They talked; in time the boys joined them. They did not speak, but they did not yawn. They did not excuse themselves to go watch television. Of course, Iso kept getting them involved, asking them questions about their favorite television programs, their favorite sports, what kinds of clothes they liked. But the conversation kept moving away from the inarticulate boys. Still they sat there unblinking, unblinking through
subsume
and
recidivism
and
revisionist
and
cunt
and
ass
and
motherfucker
. Mira felt the evening had been some sort of triumph.

Val and Iso left before two: the boys were still sitting with them. After they left, Ben looked at her liquid-eyed. He was making no demands, but she felt herself demanding. She turned to her sons: ‘Boys, I’m going to kick you out of the bedroom tonight. One of you can sleep on the
couch, one in a sleeping bag. You can toss a coin. You’re camping out tonight, okay?’

They agreed easily. She helped them make their beds, Ben carried the TV set into the living room. They made drinks and went together into the bedroom and closed the door. They sprawled out across the bed, their drinks and an ashtray between them, and talked. The boys knocked a couple of times. Norm had forgotten his pajama bottom. Clark wanted his book. They wanted to know if it was okay to eat the leftover minestrone. Each time, they opened the door shyly, but with curiosity. Each time, Ben and Mira talked to them easily, desultorily. Once they were holding hands when Clark came in: and they went on holding hands while they talked to him. And the boys stood there looking down at their mother with her lover lying on the bed, looked, and did not blink. Mira wondered at the inexpressiveness of young faces. What were they feeling, if they were feeling anything?

Eventually lights went out in the apartment, silence fell. Then Mira tried to tell Ben about her experience that day, about her confusion about the American Dream. But he did not understand. No matter how she phrased it, he simply did not know what she was talking about. Besides, he was not very interested. He felt ardent, he kept tugging at her blouse; she wanted to go on talking. In time, she gave in, but she did not give in. Whether because he did not understand the profundity of her experience that day, or because of the presence of the boys, she felt a little isolated, apart from him. Their lovemaking that night was brief and quiet. She was grateful when Ben lay back and fell asleep.

6

When the boys were gone, and they were alone, Mira told Val about that day. Val understood immediately. ‘It’s that you can, for a moment, believe in enduring happiness.’

‘Yes. And you think if you clutch it – whatever it is – you can, well, stop time, freeze the moment, preserve the joy.’

‘But that’s true of every happiness, not just this one.’

‘Yes. But part of what brought me up short was that I was afraid of falling into the impulse toward permanence. But I was also shocked at how I was still buying the package, the
happy humming domesticity
, you know?’ she cooed the phrase.

‘But it was, wasn’t it?’

‘Val, we had so much fun that afternoon, the boys and I. We laughed, we sang …’ She gazed wide-eyed at her friend. ‘The vegetables smelled so fine and fresh, the sun was so bright! But I don’t like to cook!’ she insisted.

Valerie laughed. ‘It’s like me never really learning to type. I type all the time, of course, but even after all these years, I’m lousy at it. I didn’t want to be excellent at something I was
supposed
to be able to do.’

‘Oh,’ Mira mock-moaned, ‘nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you
like
parts of the role you’re trying to escape?’

They both laughed hopelessly.

‘You’re closer to the boys, aren’t you?’

‘Much. But still – I don’t know. I worry. I still have such trepidations, Val. Guilt, I guess, but I can’t seem to eradicate it. I do still feel it’s shocking to have Ben here with them. And they – well, I don’t know – they never mention him, they’re noncommittal when I ask them what they think of him. And when we’re all together, they tease him – but, well, there’s a little – well – an edge to it …’