the Writing Circle (2010) (2 page)

S
MALL, AND SLENDER AS A BOY, BERNARD’S WIFE, AIMEE,
had struggled most of her adult life to have people take her seriously. From a distance, she looked like a child. Up close, she looked twenty rather than forty. Her voice was soft, too, a little girl’s voice, though she spoke with a care and deliberateness, and when you entered into a conversation with her you thought her smarter than in fact she was. She was a quarter Japanese, a quarter French, and when it suited her, she exploited one or the other.

Bernard was inclined to clutter and messiness. His home with Virginia had been filled with old books, old sofas, and old velvet drapes. Aimee changed all that. Bernard had ended up with the house after his divorce, and Aimee transformed it when she moved in. Not so much to exorcise Virginia (she
liked
Virginia) or make her mark as second wife, but because the place depressed her as it was. The house was practically gutted. All the woodwork was painted white—including the mantel in the living room and the stair railing, which Bernard, in a previous life, had spent days stripping of its old paint. And the furniture was spare and modern. Aimee transformed Bernard’s wardrobe as well, but when he could, he still wore the old clothes he had salvaged.

“He looks,” Virginia told her husband, Joe, “like a man sitting in a furniture showroom. But he doesn’t complain. He’s in love with her, he’ll put up with anything.” Virginia smiled and shook her head. “The old fool,” she added, kindly.

Bernard worked late at night—every night—and slept late in the morning. Aimee couldn’t sleep past eight, and the only way she could get Bernard to come to bed before midnight was to make a bath for him, in the large, claw-footed tub, slip in behind him, and soap his broad, white back. He wouldn’t return to his study after that.

He was sleeping late, as usual, this Sunday morning, and Aimee had already jogged her requisite three miles, gotten the paper and croissants, and showered before she woke him. She slipped, naked, into bed beside him and lay with half her body across his. His breath in the morning was usually a turnoff, so she avoided his mouth and instead left a trail of kisses from his ear across his cheek, down the side of his neck, settling her lips finally in the corner of his collarbone, the soft stretch of skin that, when she pressed against it, seemed to have nothing below it but air.

Bernard stirred in his sleep, woke, and smiled. He reached up one hand and stroked Aimee’s head. The bottom edge of her hair was wet, and he knew she had just come from the shower.

“I wish you didn’t have to go anywhere,” she said. “I wish we could have the whole day together.”

“We have most of the day,” said Bernard. His hand moved down from Aimee’s head to her shoulder, to her back.

“Three. You have to be there at three. That’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“Sh,” said Bernard. He held her against him and moved his body back and forth so her small breasts rubbed against his chest.

“Where are you meeting?”

“Adam’s.”

“At least that’s nearby.”

“Sh,” whispered Bernard. His hand progressed now to Aimee’s buttocks. He cupped one cheek and then moved his hand towards the center, slipping his forefinger into the fold. He pressed against her anus. There was a moment when she began to relax and his finger started to push inside her, but her muscles tightened suddenly.

“I wanted to drive up to Cranford Orchards today,” she said. “If you have to go to Adam’s, then we better get going now or it won’t be worth driving all the way up there.”

Bernard opened his eyes. He patted Aimee and smiled. The erection, which he had nearly achieved, subsided, painlessly.

“All right,” he said.

He didn’t think Aimee did this consciously, but this wasn’t the first time she had begun to arouse him on a Sunday morning only to withdraw, as if to punish him for the transgression he was about to commit: going to a meeting that she was excluded from, taking their weekend time, which she felt belonged to them rightfully as a couple, and using it for an activity that didn’t include her. She had no concern about activities he was involved in during the week. She worked at an architectural design firm and put in long hours.

She also sometimes attempted to sabotage—well, perhaps that was too strong a word—influence? his going to the meeting. A romantic encounter on an early Sunday afternoon, so he might forget about the meeting entirely (he didn’t) or an emergency that arose. Bernard never called her on this, never confronted it directly. He took her jealousy of his time away as a sign of her affection for him. He thought she was transparent, but he smiled at her in private, for he knew she would be furious if he pointed this out to her, would see it as a sign of his paternalism. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he was afraid of her anger, which was the anger of a small person, sharp and intense.

At Cranford Orchards the trees looked almost artificial, the apples round and red against all the green, like ornaments that had been placed on the branches, that could not possibly have emerged from those brown, knotty stems.

“A jubilant sight,” said Bernard as they stood on the edge of the gravel parking area, looking out at a hillside of apple trees.

“This would be a perfect place for a house,” said Aimee. “Can you imagine?”

“If there were a house here, we wouldn’t be able to stand here.”

“You say that all the time,” said Aimee, “whenever we’re somewhere with a great view. But, Bern, wouldn’t you like to wake up in the morning and step out on a deck off your bedroom and see this?”

“I like waking up in the morning in my bedroom at home and driving up here and standing with you and looking out at the view.”

Aimee punched the side of his shoulder and started walking towards the farm-stand building. It was an old barn that had been turned into a seasonal shop, selling not just apples but, as Bernard described it, “all things apple,” including apple pies, apple butter, pot holders and dishcloths with apple print fabric, wooden apple refrigerator magnets, and stationery with apple motifs. Bernard stood studying the barn siding while Aimee darted about in the shop. Bernard was impatient with anything that resembled a gift shop, but he loved the old building, the dark wood of the inside of the barn. He did not mind that Aimee covered every piece of wood in his house with a glare of white, but he missed the grain. The nature, the origin of all the trim details of his house—the moldings and mantels and window frames—was now completely hidden. It could have all been made out of plaster.

“Should we get a bag of Macouns?” asked Aimee.

“Whatever you like, my dear,” said Bernard.

The question was somewhat rhetorical. Aimee already had the bag in her hand. In her other hand was a cluster of orange. She saw him looking at it and held it up, as if it were a bouquet.

“Japanese lanterns,” she said, smiling.

“I know.”

“We have just the vase for them.”

Bernard nodded. He had no idea what vase she was referring to, had no idea about their stock of vases—some had probably always been in the house (Virginia took few things with her), several Aimee had brought to their marriage, and one he remembered they’d received as a wedding present from some relative of his, which had pleased Aimee. They had been married by a justice of the peace in a small ceremony at home, and although Aimee had claimed at the time it was what she wanted, he sometimes wondered if she had secretly longed for a wedding with all the trappings and had hoped he would insist on it. The vase had come in an excessively large white box from some expensive store, and Aimee had opened it with excitement. He thought she saw it as a token that their union had been accepted by his family. But maybe he was reading something into it that wasn’t there, maybe it was just that she had liked the vase for its clean, crystal lines, liked it for itself.

The woman at the cash register moved her eyes from Aimee to Bernard and back again. She was, no doubt, trying to ascertain their relationship. It had happened on several occasions that someone had mistaken them for father and daughter—even though they didn’t look at all related, Aimee with her straight, nearly black hair and dark eyes and her small, taut body, and Bernard with pale eyes and curly hair that had once been blond, and a corpulent, puffy look. Aimee was particularly sensitive to this and at times like these would convey by a touch or a word something that put things straight.

Bernard started reaching into the back pocket of his baggy corduroy pants to extract his wallet, but Aimee quickly laid her credit card on the counter. “We’re all set, dear,” she said. Her voice said:
wife.

The woman picked up the card and went about her business, and Bernard imagined what she might be thinking. His daughter, Rachel, had been fine about his marrying a woman closer to her age than Virginia’s, but he hadn’t forgotten her comment at the time.

“You’ll just have to get used to people looking at you like a cradle robber,” she’d said.

“It’s only because Aimee looks young for her age.”

“Aimee
is
young,” Rachel said. “She’s young enough to be your daughter.”

“Not really,” Bernard insisted.

“Daddy!” Rachel had cried, “do the math! Unless you were sexually retarded—”

“No,” said Bernard.

“Well?”

“I concede your point,” Bernard said. “You’re not angry at me, are you, Peachie?”

“Of course not,” said Rachel, and she kissed him loudly on the cheek. “You deserve to be happy. And Aimee’s fine. Even Mommy likes her.”

His son, Teddy, had been less generous. He refused to attend the wedding and, even before their more recent falling-out, adopted an injured, somewhat aggrieved air whenever they were together. Bernard guessed that Teddy thought Aimee had been seduced and pressured into marriage by Bernard (although it was quite the other way around) and that he ran her life. The rest of the world, Bernard was sure, viewed it that Aimee ran his.

Back at the house, Aimee arranged the Japanese lanterns in a clay crock Bernard wasn’t sure he’d seen before (he was certain, however, that it was not the wedding gift vase) and set it on the mantel in the room she called the library. The orange was bright against the white wall.

“What do you think?” asked Aimee.

“I like them very much,” said Bernard.

Aimee nodded, satisfied, and went back to the kitchen to lay out the luncheon food they had picked up at the deli on their way home. She had not been fishing for a compliment, Bernard knew this. Her question had been more pro forma.

Bernard stood for a while, looking at the Japanese lanterns. In the spare setting, their intricacy was remarkable. If they had been set on that mantel in the old house, they would have been lost in the midst of everything else. Bernard didn’t share Aimee’s taste, but he admired the conviction of it. He was more comfortable, aesthetically, with Victorianism than Modernism, but he didn’t care enough about aesthetics to have it matter. And for Aimee it mattered greatly. She was passionate—obsessive, Bernard sometimes thought—about her surroundings, her ambiance. She’d redesign the world, if she could.

“Did you want me to heat up the bread?” Aimee called.

“No,” said Bernard, heading to the kitchen. “It’s getting late. I need to be leaving soon.”

“It was your idea to buy all this,” said Aimee.

That had been true, but it was only because Aimee had wanted to eat lunch in a restaurant and it had seemed it would take less time to pick up something and eat at the house.

Aimee had set the table in the bay window with blue place mats and blue napkins. Now she was placing the food on the glass plates. To his alarm he saw that two wineglasses had been set on the counter. He glanced at his watch surreptitiously.

“I don’t think I’ll have anything to drink,” he said.

“We have a half-opened Pinot Grigio,” said Aimee, and she went to the refrigerator and brought it out. “It would be so nice with the antipasto.”

“All right,” said Bernard. “A small glass, then.”

He resigned himself to a more leisurely lunch than he wanted. Towards the end he suddenly remembered that he had promised Nancy he would meet her on Adam’s front porch. Even if he left right now, he would be late.

He pushed back his chair and stood up.

“I need to go,” he told Aimee. “Leave the dishes, I’ll get them when I’m back.” He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth before she could speak. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he said.

V
IRGINIA DIDN’T DRIVE. SOMEONE OFTEN GAVE HER A RIDE
home after the meetings, saving Joe a trip, but Joe always brought her there. Virginia had attempted to get a driver’s license twice, when she was young, and both times she had failed. The first time it had been more the fault of the car, a broken emergency brake on a rusty Peugeot she had borrowed for the test. The second time, nervous after her aborted attempt, she had sailed through a stop sign without even touching her foot to the brake. She resigned herself to depending on public transportation or the men in her life to chauffeur her around. Bernard loved to drive, and during the decades they were married, the thought of her trying again to get a license never came up. Joe, who had not learned to drive till he was thirty-five, the consequence of growing up in New York City, where no one in his family owned a car, was an insecure driver. It was too late, Virginia thought, for her to try to get a license now. Highways frightened her, traffic made her nervous, and her night vision wasn’t very good. So Joe chauffeured, stoically, pleased there was something he could do for Virginia.

They had not seen each other for fifty years when they met again, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t thought about each other. Joe had followed Virginia’s career, bought multiple copies of all her books, read them with more care than even her editors, and written her an admiring note for each one. She treasured these notes. They were cautious and chivalrous, even after he was a widower and Virginia was divorced and there was no need for caution on either side.

They had gone to elementary school together, a progressive private school in Manhattan. The tuition had been a stretch for Joe’s family. He was the only kid who had to commute from Brooklyn. Virginia’s family was wealthy but bohemian, so even Joe hadn’t realized at the time how rich they were. After sixth grade, they’d gone to different schools and lost touch. Joe had invited Virginia to his high school senior prom, but she was at a boarding school and hadn’t been able to get to the city for it, although she had wanted to. Joe hadn’t known that, had thought perhaps she hadn’t really wanted to. But, oh, how she had wanted to!

“It’s a miracle you’re here,” he told Virginia when she was seated beside him at the restaurant where their elementary school class had gathered for its reunion.

“No miracle,” said Virginia. “You wrote, and made an excellent point. You said it was an event that would be unlikely to occur again. And”—she smiled—“you shamed me into it.”

“Shamed you?” asked Joe.

“You made it sound as if you thought I might think myself too important to come to a reunion. Me, important! So to prove to you how ridiculous that notion was, here I am.” Virginia raised her hand in emphasis, and the silver bangles on her wrist slid down and settled in a clump on the fatter part of her arm.

“I’m glad,” said Joe.

“Besides,” said Virginia, “I had to see what became of you.”

“I went to graduate school in history,” said Joe. “I ended up selling mattresses.” He had flattened the white linen napkin that had been folded in a cone at his place, and now he tried, unsuccessfully, to restore it to its proper shape.

“Your family’s business, right?” asked Virginia.

“You remembered that, Ginny?”

Nobody in her life now called her that. It was the name from her childhood, the name that was reserved for her family and for friends she had made before she went off to boarding school, where she was only “Virginia.” Later, with her friends in college, she was sometimes called “Gin.”

“I remember everything about you,” said Virginia. “I was in love with you back then.”

Joe looked up at her. And then, as if he might not trust the expression on his face, looked down again. He’d had a crew cut when they were in elementary school—all the boys did back then, they looked like shorn little military recruits. His hair was longer now, and grey. His eyebrows were still dark, exactly as she remembered them, thick and straight across his brow, which had given him a serious look, even when he was a little boy.

“But tell me more,” said Virginia, gently. “I lost track of you after you left Columbia.”

“When my father died, someone had to take over the business. There’s money in mattresses, not just under them; that’s what he used to say. Eventually I partnered with a British company. We made all-natural latex mattresses with wool toppings from sheep who ate only organic hay. Still, they were just mattresses.”

Joe reached forward and lifted his wineglass. He took a long sip.

“After you got married—you see, I followed what you were up to—I eventually married, too. I had two sons. My wife died when the boys were in college. Recently I sold the business and retired. Now I read. I travel and I read. Mostly, I read.”

Joe had been looking down at the table. He looked up now. “I knew you were divorced, and I thought about trying to get together with you, but—”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Not brave enough, I guess. I didn’t think you’d be interested.” Joe gave a little laugh, then he paused before he spoke again. “I’ve never stopped being in love with you, Ginny,” he said.

Virginia put her hand on his arm. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

As they were ducking out of the restaurant, a heavyset man with a tuft of hair on either side of his otherwise bald head was just coming in. He grabbed Joe by the shoulders.

“Joey Sussman!” he cried. “I bet I’m right!”

Joe removed one of the man’s hands from his shoulder, gave it a vigorous shake, and clapped him on the back.

“You’re on!” he said. “Gotta go, though,” and without giving the man a chance to recover, he pushed Virginia out ahead of him. They fled down the steps. He grabbed her hand, and they ran down the sidewalk to the corner, catching their breath while they waited for the light to change.

“Who
was
that?” asked Virginia.

“I think it was Barry—what was his name? The kid who was allergic to everything.”

“Barry Din-something. Dinsdale?”

“Dinsdorf?”

“That’s it!” said Virginia. She looked back towards the restaurant. “God, he looked old,” she said. “We don’t look that old, do we?”

“I don’t know about
us,
” said Joe, “but you look just the same.”

Virginia was about to say something joking, but the light changed, and as they crossed the street they held hands tighter. They were walking north, and a wind was coming along the avenue. Virginia shivered, and Joe released her hand and put his arm around her. She ducked her head and leaned closer against him.

It was a Sunday evening and the street was nearly deserted. Halfway down the block they stepped into the entranceway of an office building so they were blocked from the wind. Virginia leaned back against the granite wall.

The last time they had kissed, it had been spin the bottle at a birthday party. For a second Virginia was back there, standing close to Joe in the dark of her parents’ bedroom while the other kids were in the living room, sitting in a circle on the floor. But then she was here, with Joe, in a sheltered corner next to glass revolving doors stilled for the night, the wind sweeping up the avenue, tossing pages of an old newspaper along the sidewalk. She closed her eyes.

JOE PULLED UP INTO A SPACE
by a fire hydrant in front of Adam’s house. He had never mastered parallel parking, and he nosed into the space, the tail of his car sticking out farther than it should have.

“I’ll be here to pick you up around five,” he told Virginia. “Unless you call me if you get a ride.”

“Thank you, darling,” said Virginia. She had her hand on the car door handle and turned so that she could kiss Joe good-bye. The kiss, which had begun as a brief touch of lips to lips, slowed into a real kiss. Virginia let go of the door handle and put her arms around Joe’s neck. His hands slid up under the back of her hair and held her head close against his.

“That’s better,” he said, when he released her.

Virginia gave him a quick kiss of farewell and got out of the car. She closed the door and stood on the curb watching until Joe had backed out into the street. He gave a toot of the horn as he drove away. Then she turned towards Adam’s house and started up the front stairs.

There was a woman waiting on the front porch. She was in her forties, Virginia guessed, with blond hair cut just below her ears. She looked at Virginia questioningly.

In an instant Virginia realized who she must be. “Are you trying to get to the meeting at Adam’s place?” she asked.

“Oh, thanks, yes,” the woman said. “I was supposed to be meeting Bernard here at three, but I don’t think he’s come.”

Virginia laughed. “Bernard is never on time,” she said. She held out her hand. “I’m Virginia,” she said. “I was married to Bernard for twenty years. And you must be Nancy. He said he was bringing you today.”

“Yes.” Nancy took Virginia’s hand. They clasped rather than shook. Virginia remembered Bernard telling her that Nancy wasn’t married but had a relationship with someone who traveled a lot. Gillian won’t like her, she thought, but Chris will.

“Stay right here,” said Virginia. “I’ll go rap on Adam’s window so he can let us in. The buzzer doesn’t work.”

Virginia disappeared down the steps and around the side of the building. She was back in a moment. And soon the door was unlocked and Adam held it open. He was a tall, solid young man with a lot of hair and heavy-framed glasses, which might have been either entirely out of date or highly in style.

“This is Nancy,” said Virginia. “Bernie’s late as usual and she was left standing here waiting for him.”

“It wasn’t long,” said Nancy. “And then you came to my rescue.”

“I’m Adam,” said the young man. He didn’t hold out his hand. “Come on in.”

Adam’s apartment was half of the first floor of a house that had once been an elegant single-family residence. It had suffered numerous indignities since, including the partitioning off of its larger rooms to divide into apartments, the removal of its stained-glass windows (sold to an antiques dealer), and the covering of its beautiful painted ceilings with acoustical tiles. Nancy followed Virginia back to the living room while Adam went to put a piece of wood in the outside door to prop it open till everyone had arrived.

The living room looked, at first glance, like a typical graduate student’s lair, but the two armchairs were Stickley. Virginia wasn’t a fan of Mission furniture, but she knew that it had no doubt cost Adam a big chunk of his salary. He came from a working-class family; this was not stuff he would have inherited.

Virginia led Nancy towards the window, where Gillian was standing, wineglass in hand, looking out. Her braid of hair reached far below her waist, and Virginia resisted an urge to give it a tug. Gillian turned as she heard them approach.

“Gillian, this is Nancy, Bernard’s new recruit,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” said Gillian. “I’m Gillian Coit. Pleased to meet you.”

“We’ve already met,” said Nancy. “At the Achesons’, last Christmas.”

“Oh,” said Gillian. She looked perplexed.

Virginia hadn’t expected they would hit it off. Now she was sure of it.

“In fact, we’d actually met once years before that,” said Nancy. “We were both guests at a writing festival at the University of Michigan.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Gillian. “I chose not to remember much about that time. I got caught in a snowstorm on my way home and had to spend a night in the Atlanta airport.”

“The perils of holding writing festivals in the winter,” said Virginia. “Is Chris here yet?” she asked Gillian in an attempt to change the subject.

“He’s back in the kitchen, I think,” she said.

“That’s where the drinks are,” said Virginia. “Why don’t we go get something?”

“Sure,” said Nancy.

In the kitchen, Chris was wrestling with a corkscrew. He put the bottle down on the counter to shake Nancy’s hand. He was a man many women found attractive, though Virginia didn’t. He was tan and smooth shaven, and smelled like a cologne that was advertised in a scented strip inserted in an issue of
The New Yorker.
Virginia had called the magazine to complain.

“So, you’re the replacement candidate for Helene,” he said.

“Helene?” asked Nancy. “Who’s Helene?”

Virginia tried to give Chris a look, but he refused to make eye contact with her. “Helene Spivack,” she said. “She had been a member.”

“She died,” said Chris, bluntly. “Lung cancer.”

“I see,” said Nancy.

“Bernie didn’t tell you?” asked Virginia.

Nancy shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” said Virginia. She would have to talk to Bernie about this. She wondered what else he hadn’t told Nancy.

“Wine?” asked Chris, holding up a bottle.

“There’s coffee and tea,” said Virginia.

“I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea,” said Nancy.

“Help yourself,” said Virginia. She gestured towards the electric kettle, some boxes of tea bags, and a collection of mugs sitting on the counter. They were all injured in some way, chipped or stained. Nancy selected one with an image of Charlie Chaplin and made herself a cup of tea.