Heartburn Page 10

  “I don’t see what was wrong with it before,” said Arthur after they re-covered the couch.

  “Nothing was wrong with it before,” said Julie.

  “What color is this anyway?” said Arthur.

  “Taupe,” said Julie.

  Arthur shook his head. “I’ve always been terrible at colors,” he said. “It comes from having grown up with the single-row box of crayons instead of the big box. If I’d had the big box I would now know taupe and cerise and ecru. Instead, all I know is burnt sienna. And what good does it do me? Never once have I heard anything described as burnt sienna. Never once have I heard anyone say, ‘Follow that burnt sienna car.’ ”

  “I think there’s a column in this,” said Mark.

  “Goddammit, Feldman,” said Arthur.

  “You can have it if you want it,” said Mark.

  “What do you mean, I can have it if I want it?” said Arthur. “It’s mine. I’m the one who gets to say, ‘You can have it if you want it.’ Not you.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” said Mark. “Write it up for the Yale Law Review?”

  “He doesn’t have to do anything with it,” I said. “He can simply add it to his repertoire.”

  “Thanks, Rachel,” said Arthur. He looked at Mark. “Don’t break up with her, okay?” he said. “Promise me you won’t.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Mark. “You’d think you were going with her.”

  “We are,” said Arthur. “The two of us are going with the two of you.”

  “You used to like me when I was unattached,” said Mark.

  “Not as much as I like you as a couple,” said Arthur, and he gave Mark a playful punch on the arm.

  “You’re punching me because you want me to think you’re kidding, but you’re not,” said Mark.

  “You’ll never know, will you?” said Arthur. “The truth is, I wish you two would get married.”

  “Arthur, for God’s sake,” said Julie.

  “I can’t help it,” said Arthur. “I like being married. I want everyone I care about to be married. That’s the kind of guy I am. Warm. Generous. Expansive. Charming.”

  “You just want everyone to be in the same pot you’re in,” said Mark.

  “I like the pot I’m in,” said Arthur. “I like how it goes along. What’s for dinner and which movie should we see and where are my socks.”

  “Where are your socks?” said Mark. “Where are my socks? Where are all the missing socks?”

  “They’re in heaven,” said Arthur. “You die, you go to heaven, and they bring you a big box, and it’s got all your lost socks in it, and your mufflers and your gloves, and you get to spend eternity sorting them all out.”

  “I think there’s a column in this,” said Mark.

  “Goddammit, Feldman,” said Arthur.

  Mark and I got married. You should have seen Arthur at the wedding. He stood with his head cocked at a jaunty angle, winking wildly and uncontrollably at the judge. He had done it. He had talked Mark into it. By the simple example of his own contentment, he had persuaded his best friend to give up bachelorhood. At the end of the ceremony, he whipped a glass from his pocket and placed it on the ground, and when Mark smashed it into the judge’s Oriental rug, Arthur whooped around the room and danced the kazatsky. Three months later, I was walking up Connecticut Avenue, through the park at Dupont Circle, and there were Arthur and an unidentified female in a mad clinch on the park bench.

  “I saw Arthur this afternoon,” I said when I got home. “Kissing a …” I gestured absently with my hand and shook my head.

  “Woman,” said Mark.

  “How long have you known about it?” I said.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” said Mark. “I was just finishing the sentence. With Arthur, he’s kissing a woman or a bagel. I took a guess.” He looked at me. “Who was she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Thin. Pretty. Big tits. Your basic nightmare.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Should we do anything?” I said.

  “He’s my friend,” said Mark. “We don’t meddle in each other’s lives.”

  “Of course we do,” I said, “we meddle constantly. That’s what true friendship is about.”

  “What did you have in mind?” said Mark.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s just a fling,” said Mark. “He’s almost forty, he probably feels nothing’s happening to him—”

  “It’s just a passage,” I said angrily.

  “Yeah,” said Mark.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Look, I hated the book as much as you did,” said Mark.

  “I know,” I said. “I just feel betrayed. Never mind Julie—he’s cheating on us, you know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean,” said Mark.

  “One of the things I love about you is that you know what I mean even when I don’t,” I said.

  “Actually, I don’t,” said Mark. “I just say I do.”

  “Maybe it’s not serious,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s just a fuck,” said Mark.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “And I’m a ballerina,” said Mark.

  Two nights later, Arthur rang the bell in the middle of the night and announced that he was in love.

  “A stewardess?” said Mark.

  “A flight attendant,” said Arthur.

  “You must really be in love,” said Mark.

  “I am,” said Arthur.

  “Is this a midlife crisis or something?” said Mark.

  “Don’t reduce my life to some dime-store philosophy so it’s easier for you to handle,” said Arthur. “For twenty years I’ve watched you fuck around and fuck up and cheat on this one and cheat on that one. Did I ever judge you? Did I ever purse my lips? Did I ever say tch tch tch? Did you ever hear those words from me?”

  “Tch tch tch?” said Mark. “Those words? I never heard those words because your tongue was so busy hanging out of your mouth you couldn’t get them out. Listen to me. You’re married. You’ve been married eight years. You’ve got a kid. Don’t throw it away for a fuck.”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me things are going to be the same in bed with you and Rachel after eight years,” said Arthur.

  “No,” said Mark, “but it’ll still be good.”

  “It just won’t be as often,” said Arthur. “Instead of a couple of times a week it’ll be a couple of times a year.”

  “I’ll be almost fifty in ten years,” said Mark.

  “You know how old you have to be before you stop wanting to fuck strangers?” said Arthur. “Dead, that’s how old. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t go away. You put all this energy into suppressing it and telling yourself it’s worth it because of what you get in exchange, and then one day someone brushes up against you and you’re fourteen years old again and all you want to do is go to a drive-in movie and fuck her brains out in the back seat. But you don’t do it because you’re not going to be that kind of person, so you go home, and there’s your wife, and she wears socks to bed.”

  “Socks again,” said Mark.

  On and on they went. It was late. Two in the morning. Three in the morning. We sat around the kitchen table in the yellow glow of the high-crime lights on the street, and I listened to Mark. Marriage was a trust, he said. Betray that trust and you have nothing, he said. I felt so smug. My husband the convert. My husband the true believer. My husband the husband. See a marriage counselor, he said. Do something.

  And they did. The Siegels went to see a very nice marriage counselor named Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn left her husband three months later, but the Siegels survived. The four of us resumed normal activities. We went to Ohio for the shoofly pie and we went to Virginia for the ham. We were able to discuss other friends’ marital difficulties without Julie’s looking hurt and Arthur’s looking guilty. Last summer they came to visit us in W
est Virginia, and Julie and I spent a week perfecting the peach pie. We made ordinary peach pie, and deep-dish peach pie, and blueberry and peach pie, but here is the best peach pie we made: Put 1 ¼ cups flour, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ cup butter and 2 tablespoons sour cream into a Cuisinart and blend until they form a ball. Pat out into a buttered pie tin, and bake 10 minutes at 425°. Beat 3 egg yolks slightly and combine with 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and ⅓ cup sour cream. Pour over 3 peeled, sliced peaches arranged in the crust. Cover with foil. Reduce the oven to 350° and bake 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 10 minutes more, or until the filling is set.

  I keep thinking about that week in West Virginia. It was a perfect week. We swam in the river and barbecued ribs and made Bellinis with crushed peaches and cheap champagne. We lay out on the lawn, the sunlight dappling through the copper beech, and Alexandra got her kite into the air and Sam applauded madly and scampered behind her, screaming with joy. Is it hot enough for you, we said, and the water isn’t cold once you get in. We methodically rubbed sun block onto the arms of our children and poured another pitcherful into our glasses. So we were grownups. So what? Arthur lifted his glass. “I love you,” he said. “I love us.” The phone rang. Mark ran to get it and then called me into the house. We stood with the phone between us and listened to the lady in the hospital say that she had the results of the amniocentesis. The baby was normal. It was a boy. We ran back to the Siegels and drank to the baby. “You’re going to have a brother,” we told Sam. He started to cry. “Nathaniel,” I said. “Can you say Nathaniel?” “No,” said Sam. “Tummy hurts.” Mark took him then, and walked him down to the river. They found a frog. Sam held it cupped in his hands, and giggled. I remember thinking: Lucky me, lucky us, lucky Sam, lucky Nathaniel. What’s wrong with this picture?

  nine

  Arthur and Julie lived just a few blocks from our house. The morning after Mark and I got back to Washington, I slid out of bed and went over to see them. Arthur opened the door and gave me the kind of look you give someone who’s just had a death in the family and hugged me in a long, speechless, what-can-I-say sort of way.

  “How are you?” he said.

  “I’m back,” I said. “How am I?”

  “You’re back,” he said.

  “Mark came to New York yesterday,” I said. “He said he would stop seeing Thelma, so I came back.”

  Arthur nodded.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Arthur.

  Julie came out from the bedroom. She put her arms around me and patted me quite a lot, and I cried on the shoulder of her terry-cloth bathrobe.

  “Did you see him?” I said.

  They nodded.

  “I even saw her for a few minutes,” said Arthur.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m putting you in an awkward position here.”

  “No, no,” said Julie.

  “What did he say?” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Arthur.

  “Why doesn’t it matter?” I said.

  “Because he’s crazy,” said Arthur.

  We went into the kitchen and sat down with some of Arthur’s fetishistically brewed coffee. Arthur makes coffee by putting eggshells and cinnamon sticks and an old nylon stocking into the coffeepot. His coffee tastes like a very spicy old foot.

  “The week you came to West Virginia two months ago,” I said.

  “What about it?” said Arthur.

  “Did we have a good time that week?”

  “Terrific,” said Julie.

  “Did Mark and I seem happy?”

  “Yes,” said Julie.

  “I was wondering about it,” I said, “because Mark told me that our marriage had been terrible for a long time, and now I can’t remember whether or not it was.”

  “He told us that, too,” said Arthur.

  “What else did he tell you?” I said.

  “He said you were mean to him,” said Arthur.

  “I probably am,” I said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Julie.

  “I am,” I said. “All summer long I was snapping at him because he was never there.”

  “Of course you were snapping at him,” said Julie. “He was having an affair.”

  “But I didn’t know,” I said.

  “You must have known,” said Arthur. “I knew.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know,” said Julie.

  “I didn’t know about Thelma,” said Arthur, “and I didn’t know for sure, but I thought he was up to something. All those trips to the dentist.”

  “What was the matter with me?” I said. “If you could see it, why couldn’t I?”

  “Stop beating up on yourself,” said Julie. “You trusted him. You have to trust someone you’re married to, otherwise you’d spend your entire life going through the phone bills and American Express receipts.”

  “It’s going to be all right,” said Arthur.

  “You’re only saying that because you have to leave to teach a class and it’s a good exit line,” I said.

  “I’m saying it because I have to leave and teach a class,” said Arthur, “but it’s true. He’ll come to his senses. Jesus Christ, Rachel. Sam’s still a baby and you’re pregnant.”

  Arthur kissed us both goodbye and went out the door. Julie waited until she was sure he’d taken the elevator.

  “I didn’t know Mark was having an affair,” said Julie. “I want you to know that. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d known, but I didn’t know.”

  “I know,” I said. “What should I do, Julie?”

  “Go home. Go on working. Take care of Sam. Have the baby. Wait the thing out. Eventually he’ll get tired of her. Eventually she’ll turn into as big a nag as he thinks you are. Eventually he’ll get just as bored in bed with her as he is with you. And when that happens, he’ll decide that it’s less trouble to stay with you.”

  “But Mark isn’t going to see Thelma anymore,” I said. “So how is he going to get tired of her?”

  “He will,” said Julie.

  “He will what?” I said.

  “He’ll see her again, and he’ll get tired of her.”

  “And I’m supposed to sit there like a lox in the meantime?”

  “Yes,” said Julie. “If you want to stay married.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” I said.

  “I know,” said Julie, “but it works. I did it. Sometimes I don’t know why I did it, because it’s so horrible and painful and humiliating, waiting the damned thing out. Sometimes I think I’d have been better off if I’d just left.”

  “Aren’t you glad you’re still with Arthur?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Julie.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Julie. “Sometimes the idea of being single interests me. For example, I woke up this morning and realized I’m never going to have bondage. It’s just never going to come up with me and Arthur. I don’t want to have it particularly, but it’s never going to come up.”

  “I’ve never done it either,” I said, “though I guess if I wanted to I could always ask.”

  “Arthur would just laugh at me,” said Julie.

  “Although I’m not sure what Mark would tie me to,” I said, “since we don’t have a headboard. You pretty much need a headboard, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” said Julie. “That’s the whole point.”

  “I guess you could always check into a hotel,” I said. “Hotel beds have headboards.”

  “You could call room service for the rope,” said Julie.

  “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” I said.

  “It’s always bad when it happens,” said Julie. “And then it gets better. You’ll see. In a while, you’ll be able to spend entire fifteen-minute periods without thinking about what they did together.”

  “And in the meantime,” I said, “I can think about all the things in my future if it doesn’t work
out.”

  “What besides bondage?” said Julie.

  “Amyl nitrates,” I said. “Threesomes. Japanese movies. Roller disco. Thai food.”

  “I thought you hated Thai food,” said Julie.

  “I do,” I said, “and if my marriage breaks up, I’ll never have to have it again. It may be worth it.”

  Julie looked at me. “I think something happens to them,” she said.

  “You mean men,” I said.

  “I’m not saying they’re worse,” said Julie. “I’m saying they’re different.”

  “You are too saying they’re worse,” I said.

  “I know,” said Julie.

  “So what do we do?” I said.

  “We hang on,” she said, “and if it doesn’t work, we try again with the next one.”

  When I got home, Mark was out in his office writing a jolly column about the Eastern shuttle. I walked into the kitchen and found Sam with Juanita, the maid. She was teaching him to say “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas” in Spanish, which in some ways is the motto for Juanita’s life. Juanita had lain down for twelve years with her husband, Hernando, and when he finally crawled out of her life, taking her Sears, Roebuck charge card with him, he left behind a rash of bad debts and old girl friends and faulty automobile parts that seemed destined to dominate Juanita’s life forever. At least once a week she would turn up late for work, and explain through sobs that the Sears credit department was about to seize a stereo component she knew nothing about, or that her husband had stolen the spare tire from her car trunk, or that someone named Theresa had turned up at the front door asking for Hernando’s stopwatch. “I tol’ her he takes two minutes, drunk or sober,” said Juanita. “What she need to time it for?” Juanita was a very brave woman, really—she was single-handedly supporting her three children—and I always tried very hard to love her, but she made it difficult because she was so disaster-prone. One morning, for example, on her way to work, she was stuck in a traffic jam on the Beltway, and when she got out of her car to see what was holding things up, in that split second, someone crept in through the passenger door of her car and stole her purse. Another time, she was standing in line in the Georgetown Safeway when a woman in front of her collapsed, and after Juanita revived her with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the woman tried to have her arrested for making improper advances.