Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) (23 page)

“I think. Yes. But how well do I know him?”

“Tracy, I'm still getting to know Ed. There's no endpoint to it. There's no ‘enough,' no point of safety where you can predict everything about a person. Okay”—she draws another deep breath—"so I know this is a bit unusual. So this isn't ideal. But
jump into this, Tracy. You've already said yes. His family knows. Just“—breath—“jump
in.
If you decide it's a mistake you can always break it off. We can talk about this tomorrow, we can talk about this for the next six months or six years. Just don't keep him waiting now. This is not men's strong suit. Their egos aren't built to stand this. I'm telling you something important, Tracy. Do not keep that man waiting now, because if you spend the rest of your life with him you will never be able to remove the scar that will result from spending the next hour on the phone with me. Never.”

My voice climbs to a panicked falsetto. “What about the scar this will leave on me? Shit, I didn't even know what I was saying when I said yes. This engagement wasn't even a conscious choice. I don't know what the hell happened, George and I are usually”—words flurry—“this isn't how we
are.
”

“Okay. But who do you think can handle the stress better right now, you or him? Men are terrified when they propose. Ed was shaking. After I said yes he went to the bathroom and vomited. Okay, maybe that's not typical, but I also think it's not as unusual as people might guess. George may be acting calm now, but he's as revved as he's ever been. Go back to him. Tell him you love him. Talk about whatever worries you have. Tell him you need a long engagement, and then over the next few weeks you can sort out how you feel. Just get back in the room with him.”

“My God.” There is a long silence, during which God patently fails to intervene. “If you truly think guys are so fragile they can't handle the truth, Hannah, why marry a man?”

“As opposed to a what?”

The solid wall of it looms before me: Hannah's shrugging acceptance, her infinite protectiveness, the untouchable mystique of Ed's fragility. I've never understood how little Hannah asks of men. I have known men my whole life. I have a father, quiet but steady. I have male friends. I have male colleagues. They are not fragile. If you ask something of a man, he will rise to the occasion as often as a woman will. Men, in my experience, do not need to be shielded from emotional truths.

But I am not dealing with Men. I am dealing with one particular, irreplaceable man. And if Hannah is right, George will never recover if I balk this afternoon.

“Tracy,” Hannah says. “We can discuss our views on gender
relations some other time. He's out on a limb. Don't leave him there.”

Thus my best friend takes me by the shoulders, turns me around, and sends me back to the lions. I leave the bedroom, stepping charily toward the love of my life.

“George?”

He looks up at me from the sofa, his eyes dark and undefended.

Straddling his thighs, I kiss him firmly. I draw him to his feet and bring him to his bedroom, where, hugging him with one arm, I reach with an icy hand for the telephone.

“Tracy,” says my mother. To my father, presumably in the next room, she announces emphatically, “It's Tracy.”

Drawing George with me, I sit on the bed, receiver against one ear. My temple rests against George's neck. His steady pulse radiates peace.

“George's sister called ten minutes ago,” says my mother. “She was very pleasant. We figured you two were off celebrating and had forgotten to phone us.” My mother, ascetic among her kind, manages to say this with only a minuscule dollop of reproach.

“Mom.” I clear my throat. It remains tight. “I'm going to marry a wonderful man.”

“We know that.” The last time my mother's voice had such lift in it I'd brought back all A's on my first-grade report card. “George sounds terrific. You're very lucky.”

“I am lucky,” I say.

A long pause follows, during which a petty, childish neediness raises its hand and will not be ignored. Reluctantly, with the sensation of dredging ancient history, I voice it. “Do you maybe also think
he's
lucky?” I ask.

“Of course he is. I'm going to call Rona. She'll want to help plan the wedding.”

“Whoa, Mom.” Hearing my voice rise, George puts an arm around me. I pull away from him. “No plans. Not yet. No Rona.”

“Nobody's making plans. Rona and I will just talk.”

“No
planning.
” I don't understand. I have never in my life heard my mother enthusiastic about planning a social event.

“Your father wants to speak with you.”

My father gets on the phone, his voice oddly constricted. “Tracy, we're proud of you,” he says.

It's a physical relief to hear him on the line: the father who telegraphed unspoken trust in me all my life, pursed his mouth with satisfaction each time I took up a new challenge, tacitly urged me toward my goals. Who helped me reason through bungled geometry exams, dropped softballs, the mysteries of parallel parking. “Dad,” I say, “I—”

“Hi, Tracy.” My mother is back.

That's it?

“Your father and I want to say hello to George,” my mother says.

George holds the receiver to his ear. Twice he starts to speak, then demurs. He nods vigorously at one point, and thanks them three separate times. Clearly my parents have saved up thirty-three years of parental advice for a son-in-law. Every mystery they never revealed to me they are now imparting to him. They are crooning ballads of derring-do, reading him the secret codex of their marriage.

When George speaks at last, he says only: “I'll take good care of your daughter.”

“Yes,” I mumble. “She can't cross the street by herself.”

George doesn't hear me. He listens for a while longer before saying a warm goodbye and setting down the phone.

“Put on your jacket.” His words brim with pleasure. He looks as though he might levitate.

“Let me clean the dishes—”

“Later!”

There is a midafternoon jazz hour downtown. The music tastes like cardboard. I can't finish my mimosa. George holds my hand, only letting go of it to applaud hearty approval of the soloists. We stroll along Broadway. I receive his solicitousness like a zombie. My voice sounds, to my own ears, strangled. High-pitched. For the first time since we met, George seems oblivious to my mood. He treads beside me on the bustling sidewalk, his gait unsteady, struck down by happiness. He leads me to the door of a jewelry store and sweeps it open.

“I picked out a few favorites,” he says. “They're all pretty simple—as you know, my salary isn't princely, and we've got to have something left for the wedding. But I'm hoping you'll like one
of them. I didn't want to make a final decision without your approval.”

The row of velvet-lined cases shines in the depths of the store. I balk like a mule: head down, legs planted on the sidewalk. “I can't think about a ring yet,” I manage.

“Okay.” Disappointed but good-humored, he lets go of the door. “It's been a big day already. You're looking a bit glassy-eyed.” He takes my hand. “I'm sure I am too.”

Dinner is at Pequod, a crowded, elegant restaurant. George has reserved a corner table and the champagne arrives as soon as we do. The waiter inishes pouring and leaves. George, watching me, wears the fervent expression of the man in the movie who's just pledged to defend his wife and kids against the invading armies, even if it means forfeiting his life.

“We know only a little about each other,” I venture in the same tight, vacant voice I've heard all afternoon and evening, speaking from somewhere just behind my head.

“True. We know only the most important things.” He raises his glass. “Don't we?”

I let my confusion bloom on my face. But for once he doesn't seem to see it.

“And I can't wait to spend the rest of my life getting to know you better, Tracy Farber.”

If our glasses make a sound, it's lost in the restaurant's din.

We settle in for the night at George's apartment. There are phone messages from Aunt Rona and Uncle Ted. Rona's congratulations are strained.

“She'll get over it when I convert.” George chuckles.

It is shockingly easy to get by without replying. Nothing seems to require an answer beside the one I gave this morning. Our conversation is a frictionless surface. George hasn't yet come down from the day he planned for us: music, dinner, romance. A palette of experiences offered to seal his pledge. He's lit from the inside, drunk on our future. We make love with the lights out. I try again and again to pierce the darkness, to apprehend the man caressing my body, whispering my name. But it's as though some passivity bomb—ticking away silently in my innards through girlhood
and years of education and competent professionalism—has detonated. Afterward we don't speak. I slow my breathing. I might be asleep.

George kisses my shoulder. Then, one arm cradling my head, he lies still for a very long time, facing the ceiling. An hour seems to pass, the quiet unrelenting. Then George whispers slowly, tasting each word. “The best day of my life,” he says.

At first I think he's speaking to me. Then I understand he's speaking to himself. To the hope that suffused his face on our first date. To the path ahead of him, embodied in my sleeping form.

His breathing deepens. Tears slip down the sides of my face. I love him. Save that, there's no room for a single clear thought.

During the night I wake three times. Once to a feverish hope that dashes about the dark room like a moth. Once sweaty, with heart pounding from a dream of some dizzying terror. Once to grief: I never thought having a romantic engagement mattered to me; yet accompanied by the quiet rhythm of George's breathing, I mourn the surprise, and the glimmering velvet jewel cases, and the champagne, that had nothing at all to do with me.

“YOU'RE
what?
”
says Jeff. He sits back, palms flat on his desk. “You want to get married to a man you hardly know?”

I lean against his closed office door, barricading it. “I love him,” I say miserably.

Jeff's brows form an offended V. “Irrelevant. You don't
know
him. You don't know how this relationship will weather. You don't know what this guy is like when the novelty wears off, or what moods he gets into in the dregs of winter, or whether he turns into a werewolf after the first six months. This relationship hasn't had time for the warranty to wear off. This is what, five days you've been dating? Look at you, you're seasick.”

“Just under two months. There was this . . . voice. I don't know. I just knew I needed to say yes—I mean, go along with it, the engagement, the phone call with his family.” I gesture uselessly. “Does that mean it's right? Even if my rational mind is taking awhile to catch on?”

“A
voice?
” He folds his arms. “I make decisions with my rational mind fully engaged, and this, my dear, is not rational. It's heterosexuality-induced madness. What's the big rush toward matrimony? What is this, nineteen-fifty? Next you'll be dropping babies.” He leans forward, setting his elbows on the table and steepling his hands. In someone else it would be prayer position. In Jeff it is a posture for argument: the greater the tension in his precisely aligned fingertips, the fiercer his points. “I take no issue
with your making a commitment. I just don't think a person—especially a straight woman—should ever rush into anything. Tracy, we all know heterosexual marriages are unhealthy. It's Western culture's open secret. You've read the stats, correct? The ones that document how married women are more depressed than single women? That shit is real. If you want emotional health, your surest bet is to get away from the old gender game. Women are happier with women, men with men. The healthy straight marriage is possible, but a rarity. And takes time to develop. In sum: I've got nothing against Tabouli, but what's his rush? And speaking of which, what the fuck is yours? Seems goddamn suspicious.” His argument complete, he sets his chin on his fingertips. ”Has ‘danger' written all over it.”

There is a long silence. I don't budge. “I love George,” I say carefully. “He and I love each other. That's very clear to me. It's just . . .” I draw a deep breath. Each word is an island. “It's just fast.”

“You want to know what I think you should do?”

I open my mouth. Then, firmly, I shake my head.

Jeff goes immobile. He is a bust of the Academic at His Desk: cut in marble, perfectly posed, aghast. “There's something very nineteenth-century about you,” he says.

He turns back to his papers. I don't imagine he's reading—the tension in his jaw belies his calm flipping of pages—but he doesn't look up again.

Back inside my office, door closed, the tightness in my throat is so painful I let out a whimper. What is supposed to be my happiest moment, the start of the rest of my life, has gone dreadfully wrong. I know what this means. I've seen it in movies, read it in novels: I'm cursed. I'll marry him and it will be disaster. Or we'll break up and I'll grieve for George forever. My breathing gets uncontrollably louder—surely Jeff can hear through the wall?—my chest shrugs, my chin rises as though there might be better air in a higher stratosphere. Small black spheres begin to bobble through my vision.

Professor Dies of Un-Broken Heart in Bizarre Office Incident.

Having no paper bags, I seize a hardcover volume of Mark Twain from my shelf, open it on my lap, and sink my face into the tent of pages.