Heartburn Read online

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me that it’s normal and natural, and that all women have tendencies of that sort.”

  “No,” I said, “but it’s not as much of a stretch for women as it is for men. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “It’s a big deal if it’s your wife,” said Richard. “And I’ll tell you the worst part of it. The worst part of it is that she’s fallen in love with someone that I introduced her to. She’s fallen in love with her secretary, and I got her the job.”

  “I’m not following you,” I said.

  “Joyce Raskin,” said Richard. “The secretary. She used to work at Channel Thirteen, and she got laid off. I’d always liked her, and Helen was looking for a secretary, so I gave Joyce Helen’s number and now she’s sleeping with my wife.”

  “Well, don’t blame Joyce,” I said.

  When my friend Brenda slept with my first husband, Charlie, I made that mistake—I blamed Brenda. It seemed quite unsurprising that Charlie would betray me—he, after all, was a man, and men had been betraying me since the first grade. But she was my friend! She had been my friend since the day we’d met, when we were both five years old and standing on line for books in kindergarten; and I have never forgotten that moment because she turned around and I looked at her and decided she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Her flaxen hair came to her waist, her eyes were deep green, her skin was white as snow, just like a stupid fairy tale. I always hoped that Brenda would eventually lose her looks—my theory being that I would grow up and gain mine, she would lose hers, and we’d end up more or less even—but she never did. What made this worse when we were young was that every summer we went to camp together and performed as an act in the camp talent show, and she always got to be the girl and I always had to be the boy. I had been deeply and smolderingly resentful of Brenda for years simply because I so wanted to be the girl and never got to be, and the truth is that I was secretly pleased when she slept with Charlie because I was exonerated from the guilt of all those years of feeling jealous of her and was plunged suddenly into a warm bath of innocent victimization.

  That’s the catch about betrayal, of course: that it feels good, that there’s something immensely pleasurable about moving from a complicated relationship which involves minor atrocities on both sides to a nice, neat, simple one where one person has done something so horrible and unforgivable that the other person is immediately absolved of all the low-grade sins of sloth, envy, gluttony, avarice and I forget the other three.

  It wasn’t until years later, when the extent of the betrayal was finally revealed to me, that I realized how wrong I’d been to blame Brenda. Years later, Brenda, the creep, turned up at my father’s wedding to her big sister and came up to me, dripping with earnest, weepy sincerity.

  “I really hope we can be friends again,” she said.

  “I seriously doubt we’re ever going to be,” I said.

  “But I miss you so much,” said Brenda. She started to cry.

  “Don’t pull that on me,” I said. “I didn’t do anything to you, you did it to me. Remember?”

  “Yes,” said Brenda. “And I’ll never forgive myself. Please forgive me.”

  Be reasonable, Rachel, I said to myself. This woman is now a relative. Are you never going to speak to her again because of one afternoon’s indiscretion? Because of one afternoon your husband went out to buy light bulbs and didn’t?

  “Please forgive me,” Brenda went on. “If I could take back any week of my life, it would be that week in Florida.”

  That week in Florida! I couldn’t believe it! Months before the afternoon of the light bulbs, Brenda had been so forlorn about her marriage to Harry that Charlie and I had taken her along with us to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. To perk her up! Can you imagine? I had spent the week wandering through the Grand Ballroom of the Fontainebleau Hotel, judging the sweet ’n’ creamy crescent crisps, and now it turned out that Brenda and Charlie had spent the week watching X-rated movies on the pay TV upstairs and fucking like rabbits. There I was at my father’s wedding reception, there was my father telling yet another worn-out anecdote about how he told Howard Hawks to stuff it, there was my new stepmother passing the guacamole, and I was in such a rage about that week in Florida I could hardly see straight. I wasn’t angry at Brenda, you understand. I’d spent so many years being angry at Brenda that I didn’t have the energy to be any angrier. It was Charlie I wanted to kill. I’ll admit it was a delayed reaction, but I honestly wanted to call him up and tell him to go to hell and threaten never to see him again. Since I really hadn’t seen him since our marriage ended five years earlier, this would have been a fairly empty gesture, but I still felt like making it. I was in a real mess with Mark, no question of that, but at least I knew whom to blame.

  “Why shouldn’t I blame Joyce?” Richard said to me. “She was my friend.”

  “But Helen is your wife,” I said.

  “But I never trusted Helen,” said Richard. “She just used to sit there and drink her Tab, and I could never figure out what was going through her head.”

  “Well, now you know,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Richard.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but it was meant to make you feel better, not to make you mad.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Richard. “Tell me about you and Mark.”

  We went out to the street. It was a clear October day, and we started walking uptown, arm in arm. When you’re pregnant, it’s especially nice to walk arm in arm with someone who’s tall, because your stomach fits in so neatly. I told him about me and Mark and Thelma. By the time I got through, we had walked all the way from Macy’s to Central Park, and when we got to the park, Richard kissed me. Richard kisses very nicely. So does Mark, but one of the things that happen in marriage is that the kissing stops. We walked over to the zoo, watched the Delacorte clock strike five, and sat down on a bench facing the seal pond. Richard kissed me again.

  “I think I cooked too much for him,” I said.

  “You’re crazy,” said Richard.

  “I think I was so entranced with being a couple that I didn’t even notice that the person I thought I was a couple with thought he was a couple with someone else.”

  Richard put his hand on my stomach. It was hard and round as a basketball. “I think you should come home with me,” he said.

  I shook my head no.

  “I mean it, Rachel,” said Richard. “It’ll be terrific. I’ve never slept with anyone who was seven months pregnant.”

  “I’m sure Helen will like it, too,” I said.

  “Helen moved out this morning,” said Richard. “So you can move in if you want to. There’s even room for the kids. I’m serious, Rachel. I once did a documentary on Lamaze, so I’m prepared to go into labor with you. We can go take a refresher course.”

  “I’m not big on Lamaze,” I said.

  “Then we can go take a class in anti-Lamaze,” said Richard.

  “But we’re not in love,” I said.

  “How do you know?” said Richard.

  “Because I’m still in love with Mark. And you’re still in love with Helen. And we would just huddle together, two little cuckolds in a storm, with nothing to hold us together but the urge to punish the two of them for breaking our hearts.”

  “Marry me,” said Richard. He stood up and said it again, loudly. “Marry me, Rachel.”

  There were a dozen people sitting on benches and wandering around the seal pond, and I could see them turning to watch.

  “I mean it, Rachel,” said Richard, very loudly now. “I want to marry you. I should have married you in the first place.”

  “Marry him, Rachel,” shouted a young man sitting two benches away. “Give the kid a father.”

  There was a cheer from a couple on another bench, and scattered laughs.

  “Richard, sit down,” I said. “Please.”

  “Do you want to bring a child into the world under these circu
mstances?” he shouted. He was moving toward the seal pond now, and he jumped onto the parapet surrounding it. “I want to marry you and you want to marry me—you just aren’t in touch with it. Marry me, Rachel. I’m constant. I’m immutable. I’m probably drunk, but I mean every word of this. When I say forever, I mean forever. And if you want me to sit down and stop shouting at you and making a public spectacle of myself, you’ll have to say yes.” There was a huge cheer from the spectators. “You hear this?” said Richard. “There’s a groundswell of support here.” He looked at me and raised both hands in the air in a victory salute. “Marry me,” he shouted, “and you will never have to set foot in the city of Washington again. Marry me and you will never have to pretend you know the difference between Iran and Iraq. Marry me and you will never again have to listen to someone tell you who he thinks the next assistant foreign editor of the Washington Post is going to be.” He tossed his head and smiled in what I’m sure he thought was an extremely handsome gesture. Then he turned around and leapt backward into the seal pond. There was a huge flapping of flippers as the seals who were lying on the rocks dove into the water. Everyone ran to the fence and watched as Richard swam several circles around the pond in a perfect Australian crawl and then pulled himself up to dry on the rocks. “Think it over,” he shouted to me, and then fell backward in a mock collapse. About a minute later, he was arrested by the park police for disturbing the peace. He was extremely good-humored about it. They wrapped him up in a horse blanket and took him to the precinct in the park and wrote out a ticket and sent him home. I made him some eggs and put him to bed.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To my father’s for the night. I’ve missed the last plane.”

  “Rachel,” said Richard, “it had nothing to do with how much you cooked for him. It had nothing to do with how much you wanted to be a couple. It had nothing to do with you.”

  “It must have had something to do with me,” I said.

  “Why?” said Richard.

  “Because if it didn’t, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “That’s my point,” said Richard.

  “I know that’s your point,” I said, “but I can’t accept it.”

  “Well, if you ever do,” said Richard, “you ought to do what I did. I feel much, much better.”

  “Are you suggesting I ask someone I’m not in love with to marry me and then jump into the seal pond?” I said.

  “I’m suggesting that you make a wild and permanent gesture of size,” said Richard, “and mine was to ask you to marry me and jump into the seal pond. Yours can be anything you want.”

  “The only wild and permanent gesture of size that has ever crossed my mind,” I said, “is to have my hair cut.”

  “You’ll think of something,” said Richard. “And when you do, I’ll be here.” Then he smiled and fell asleep.

  eleven

  The next morning, I flew back to Washington. I felt better; at least someone wanted to be married to me. It wasn’t the person I was married to, but it was better than nothing. I took a cab home. Maybe he’s missed me, I thought as we came around the corner. Maybe he’s come to his senses. Maybe he’s remembered he loves me. Maybe he’s full of remorse. There was a police car parked in front of the house. Maybe he’s dead, I thought. That wouldn’t solve everything, but it would solve a few things. He wasn’t, of course. They never are. When you want them to die, they never do.

  Mark was sitting in the living room with two Washington policemen. The police were telling Mark how much they liked his column and drinking beer. It’s always a shock to me that the police are willing to drink your beer. I spent so many years as a child watching Jack Webb turn down beer on Dragnet that I’ve come to believe it’s practically insulting to offer a policeman even a cup of coffee. When I walked in, both policemen stood up, and one of them shook my hand and announced solemnly that he had come to return my diamond ring. There was a receipt, which I signed, and then he handed me a small brown envelope tied with string. I opened it. The ring was inside, wrapped in tissue, along with a letter from Detective Nolan. “Dear Ms. Samstat,” it said, “I am sending this to Washington, as I understand from your therapist that you are living there again. We caught the perpetrator and he confessed, so it will not be necessary for you to appear in court. If you turn up in New York at any point, give me a call. I am bald now.” There was a phone number and his name, Andrew Nolan. Andrew. Not a bad name. Andy. Andy Andy Andy. No, Andy. Please, Andy. Yes, Andy. Don’t stop, Andy. I love you, Andy. I started to put the ring back on my finger, but the diamond was loose in the setting. A sign. I was sick and tired of signs. I showed it to Mark. He glared at me. Another sign.

  The police left, and Sam came rushing downstairs, shouting, “Mommy, Mommy,” and jumped into my lap.

  “Thelma called yesterday,” Mark said, “and she’s very angry at you, and I am, too.”

  “Where were you, Mommy?” said Sam.

  “New York City,” I said, “but I’m back now.”

  “She had lunch with Betty yesterday,” said Mark, “and Betty told her you said she had herpes.”

  “I never said herpes,” I said.

  “You must have said something,” said Mark.

  “I said she had an infection,” I said.

  “Well, she’s furious at you,” said Mark.

  “She’s furious at me,” I said. “That’s rich.” All my life I had wanted to say, “That’s rich.” Now I finally had gotten my chance. “That’s really rich,” I said. “Listen, you bastard. You tell Thelma that if she keeps calling here, I’ll tell Betty she has the clap.”

  “Clap hands,” said Sam, and clapped his together.

  “I’ll get it into the Ear, too,” I said. “ ‘What hopelessly tall and ungainly Washington hostess has a social disease, and we don’t mean her usual climbing?’ ”

  Mark stood up and strode out of the room and slammed the door behind him. I heard the car start, and he drove off.

  I read Sam a story, but I could barely concentrate. When is this going to stop hurting? I wondered. How was I ever going to get through? There was one bright spot in my life, my child, and I couldn’t even focus on him. I’ve been shot in the heart, I thought. I’ve been shot in the brain, I thought, and all I can come up with are clichés about being shot in the heart. I knew there were women who understood these things, who could walk around as if they were under water until the smoke cleared, who could keep their big mouths shut, who could even manage the delicate moment when they confronted their rivals at a dinner or the supermarket or the Saks Jandel winter clearance sale, but I clearly wasn’t one of them. My mother once caught my father kissing someone at a party, and she never forgot it; every time she got tanked she brought it up. A mere kiss. What would she have done with a full-fledged love affair during a pregnancy?

  I knew it wasn’t Thelma’s fault that any of this had happened. She was never my friend. We had never even had lunch! And I had long since ceased to believe in the existence of that mystical sisterly loyalty women are alleged to feel toward one another. But knowing all this, I nonetheless hated her with every swollen inch of my being. I hated her for turning Mark from the man I had fallen in love with into a cold, cruel stranger; it was almost as if he had become her mirror image, and was treating me the same way Thelma treated her husband Jonathan.

  I could just imagine the next Washington evening all four of us were invited to. I could just imagine Thelma doing her gracious lady number, holding out her hand like the Queen of England ready to mend a fence with an unruly colonial nation, paying me a totally hypocritical compliment about the black schmatta I had been stuck wearing since my fifth month of pregnancy. “Oh, Rachel,” she would say, “I always find that dress so very becoming.” I wanted more than anything to be a good girl under those circumstances. To button my lip. To let one go by. I wanted more than anything to be the kind of cool an
d confident person who could treat her as if she were no more trouble to me than an old piece of chewing gum I had accidentally stepped in. But clearly I wasn’t cut out to be that kind of person.

  And what would happen if everyone found out? What would happen if this tacky little mess became common knowledge; what would happen when the four of us became that year’s giggle, or gossip, or simply what Walter Winchell used to call a Dontinvitem? It was hard enough putting a marriage back together without becoming known publicly as a marriage-in-trouble; a marriage-in-trouble is welcomed with about as much warmth as cancer.

  I took Sam into the kitchen and handed him over to Juanita. Then I went out the back door and over to Mark’s office. The door to it was open, as I’d expected; he’d left the house in such a hurry he hadn’t locked it. I sat down in his desk chair and opened the drawer and pulled out the file with the phone bills in it. It was all there, as I knew it would be: local phone calls that Mark had charged to our home number; long-distance calls to France in May; calls in August to Martha’s Vineyard. I pulled out the American Express bills. (What did masochistic women do before the invention of the credit card?) I went through the receipts: the Marriott Hotel in Alexandria, the Plaza Hotel in New York, the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. And the flowers—so many flowers.

  I felt like a character in a trashy novel; I even knew which trashy novel I felt like a character in, which made it worse: The Best of Everything. At least I wasn’t going through the garbage, but that was only because it hadn’t turned out to be necessary. The first flowers were sent in mid-March. Mid-March. I suddenly remembered: in mid-March, when the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island overheated, I had become so worried about its blowing contaminated air in our direction that I had taken Sam with me to a food demonstration in Atlanta. For years, Mark had been haranguing me about my total lack of interest in politics, and finally I had got interested—so interested I had actually left town—and where had it got me? It had got me and Sam to Atlanta, and my husband and Thelma to bed. That would teach me to be political.