A Happy Marriage (33 page)

The pleasure of that achievement didn’t last for long. He was exhausted, and his back hurt. He put the soiled linen, washcloths, and clothes in one plastic bag to be washed; and the used wet wipes and latex gloves in another to be tossed. The dirty quilt was too large for the bags he had on hand. He went downstairs to fetch a larger one. When he returned, she hadn’t moved.

This is probably a coma, he thought. Her lack of awareness of him and of the world was total. She had reacted only to what the skin of her body felt. She was gone. The Margaret he needed to speak to was gone.

Enrique tried to be cool about it. Although he was up at the ungodly hour of eight-forty-five, he waited until eleven am on New Year’s Day 1976 before he lifted the heavy black phone to dial Margaret’s number, got as far as the first two digits, and then replaced the receiver with a thud that provoked a single muffled chime from the base’s internal bell. Something about the unnatu
ral quiet outside his windows on the usually loud Eighth Street convinced him that it was way too early to call and ask whether he could pick her up for brunch, thus making sure that he was still invited.

Doubt had crept in as to whether he was welcome to join Margaret and her girlfriends in their first meal of the year because he realized—nearing midnight at a dreary New Year’s Eve party, while dreading that awkward moment for singles when they have to kiss someone to celebrate the new year—that he didn’t know when or where this brunch was taking place. She had invited him without providing those details.

By the next morning, Enrique had inflated this omission into a suspicion that Margaret had shrewdly failed to supply the location because she intended never to see him again. He pictured himself waiting by the phone all day until eventually he broke down and called, only to be told by a cheerful, yet somewhat chilly Margaret that she and her friends had been out until dawn and had slept through their intended brunch; that she was sorry and they would make another date soon. And, of course, he would never hear from her again. He became convinced that last night, at the fun, loud, sweaty dancing party where Margaret had celebrated the advent of 1976, she had met a man with a working penis in whose arms she now languished while she realized with horror that she had to deal with sad Enrique and his pathetic expectation that he would soon be enjoying nova and bagels with her. When he lifted the receiver and put his index finger in the hole to dial, he imagined what could happen if he completed the call. He vividly heard the pleased laughter his triumphant rival would enjoy after she hung up, having explained that their brunch was off because two of her girlfriends were suffering from botulism. He saw this Lothario cupping her lovely breast and kissing her nipple while she giggled with naughty
glee. It was too much. Don’t call, he told himself. As awful as it would be to sit all day by the phone, that humiliating vigil would be so much better than making an idiot of himself by pressing an unwanted pursuit. This resolution not to phone calmed him—albeit settling into an embittered and hopeless feeling of doom.

At eleven-fifteen he lifted the receiver again. He got as far as rotating through five of the seven necessary digits before dropping it like a hot potato from so great a height that this time the bell jangled loud and chimed twice before it settled into an ominous silence. “I can’t stand this,” he cried out, as nervous and as miserable as he ever remembered feeling or imagined that he could ever feel. “I can’t see her anymore,” he mumbled, accepting the fact that he didn’t have the strength to live through this sort of torment. I’m too sensitive, he told himself, I don’t have the capacity for this kind of emotion. That’s why I’m a writer, he realized, I can’t deal with the real world. That’s why my cock only works when I’m writing sex scenes, he decided, forgetting that he had lived with Sylvie for over three years and managed to make love to her hundreds of times.

I should go, he decided. Not be here at all. But where? Or to what? He had no notion. But he should leave. Ignore her rejection. He got as far as the closet to put on his green Army coat before he was stopped by the simple fact that he might, after all, be mistaken. Perhaps she would call. Very, very unlikely, and probably only to cancel politely, but she might.

He smoked five cigarettes. He made a four-cup pot of coffee and drank all of it. At eleven-thirty he decided never to call her again. At eleven-thirty-four he dialed, got through six digits, and then replaced the receiver so gingerly that this time there was no forlorn bell decrying his cowardice.

By eleven-fifty-two, he was seated on the edge of his bed, keen
ing back and forth, moaning aloud, “Oh my God, I’m losing my mind, oh my God, I’m losing my mind,” when his phone rang. He stared at it for a second, astonished. It’s someone else, he warned himself, heart pounding as he leapt up and walked to his desk, staring at the black thing, its bell blaring. Waiting through all of its second ring was agony. What if she hung up? How could he stand to talk to anyone else? Imagine if it were his father calling. Imagine if it were Bernard. My God, Bernard was right, had been right all along. He wasn’t in her league. He wasn’t even in Bernard’s league. He wasn’t—this was the awful truth—he wasn’t in any league at all.

The start of Ma Bell’s third ring was so harsh that he jerked the receiver up just to silence it. “Hello,” he demanded, prepared to yell at whoever was on the line.

“Happy New Year,” Margaret said. At the sound of her brisk, gentle, amused, and sly voice, relief was all-encompassing: Novocain vanishing a throbbing toothache, the heat of a bath enveloping aching muscles, or, most accurately, the embrace of a loving woman.

“Happy New Year to you,” he said, and if you had heard his voice, you would have thought him the calmest and most confident young man on earth. “How was your party?” he asked with a tone of ease and pleasant curiosity while inside he was prepared to hear that she had met someone better.

“Boring,” she said. “Kind of boring. I didn’t really know what I was doing there. How about yours? Was it the most fabulous fun you’ve ever had?” She laughed gaily.

“I was ready to kill myself it was so boring,” he said. “So—are we on for brunch?”

“Yes. Sure. I mean, me and the girls are having brunch and it’d be great if you came. Are you sure you want to join us?” Her doubt worried him.

“I’d love to come. But if you really need to see them alone, I mean if it’s weird for me to crash it, I understand. Maybe you and I can have dinner later?”

“Sure, we can have dinner later if you’re not bored with me, but I’d love it if you came to brunch. It’ll get the girls all excited, and that’ll be fun.”

“It’ll get the girls all excited?” Enrique asked, wary and skeptical. What was exciting about him? His inability to penetrate? His harmlessness?

“Sure. A strange new man on New Year’s Day? They’ll be all atwitter.”

“Let’s twitter them,” Enrique said, and Margaret laughed, again with that odd and inexplicable merriment. Where did she get her good cheer? And how could he afford to live without it? “When and where?” he asked, praying that he had enough time to reconsider his wardrobe. He was in black jeans, of course. Maybe today was the day to switch to blue.

“Guess where we’re going,” Margaret said and added, “The Buffalo Roadhouse. Can you stand going back there?”

“Definitely. I love the Buffalo Roadhouse. I think we should have dinner there too. We should never eat anywhere else.”

Margaret didn’t laugh at that joke. “Oh my God,” she said. “That would be horrible. Okay!” she announced. “I have to get myself together. My friend Lily and I will come by at twelve-fifty and ring your bell and we’ll walk over there together.”

“Okay,” Enrique said, and he was alone again, only this time a great surge of excitement and happiness flooded him. He danced around the living room in goofy ecstasy. He checked himself in the mirror, changed his blue work shirt to a black turtleneck and his black jeans to blue, realized that was wrong, then went back to black. He noticed that the black turtleneck and black jeans gave him a severe appearance, but that there was
something oddly right about his forbidding look. I am, after all, quite insane, he thought with dismal pride. I should dress as if I were institutionalized.

He did his best not to be downstairs waiting for Margaret and Lily before they arrived, but he was on the sidewalk by twelve-forty. He waved like an imbecile when he spotted the two girls half a block away, talking in an intense and earnest manner to each other. What were they discussing so seriously? It wasn’t him, he decided, because when they saw him, they unself-consciously broke into smiles and waved back with equal energy as if they were all old friends, reunited after a long separation.

Margaret and Lily were giddy during the walk to Sheridan Square, repeatedly praising him for his bravery in attending an all-female brunch. At the third mention of it, he commented, “I’m beginning to get worried that you’re so impressed. I’m just
attending
this brunch, right? I’m not going to be cooked and eaten, am I?”

The girls giggled at that and exchanged a look which had some sort of meaning. He wasn’t worried by it; they clearly approved of him. Considering how much ammunition he had handed Margaret for her to mock him, he felt reassured—almost. Two women he hadn’t met were joining them at the Buffalo Roadhouse. He remained somewhat nervous about how they would react to him, since he supposed that Margaret was displaying him for some sort of approval from her girlfriends. It was clear, however, that he had Lily’s okay, and she, according to Margaret, was her best friend.

The two others were waiting for them just inside the front door. Penelope, a curly-haired redhead whose skirt and blouse—the others were in jeans—and formal manner made her seem older than her years, didn’t seem surprised to see him. But a blonde named Sally, with startled eyes and a general look of dis
combobulation, goggled at him. “
You’re
coming to our girls’ lunch?”

“Isn’t that brave?” Lily insisted.

“I’m brave,” Enrique said as he took Sally’s hand. “In fact, I’m fearless. On our way here, I got these two to cross against the light and run across Sixth Avenue. Exhilarating, wasn’t it?” He turned to Margaret, who didn’t skip a beat in answering, “Yep. We’re outlaws now.”

They were seated at a table beside the one where he and Margaret had had dinner. “Our table,” he commented. Sally asked what he meant. Margaret explained that their first date had been only the night before last, a fact which Penelope seemed already to know from her solemn nods. It was news to Sally. She cracked up the table by commenting, “Wow! And she invited you to brunch! And you said yes! That must have been some hot date.” The laughter put everyone at ease. Enrique asked how the girls had all met, and they hurried in their answers, talking over each other. Sally, Lily, and Margaret had gone to Cornell. Lily and Penelope worked as assistant editors at a publishing house, and Penelope’s husband, Porter, was the movie critic for a start-up weekly magazine, rumored to be on the verge of folding. The latter possibility had put him into a state of hysteria—that was Penelope’s disapproving characterization. After making it, she turned to Enrique and added, “Oh, Porter read your novel. He liked it.” She chuckled. “And that’s rare for Porter.”

“You published a novel?” Sally asked, the fluted lips of her mouth parted, green eyes bulging, a look of astonishment that was so broad Enrique laughed. He said, “Presumably,” and didn’t elaborate. The last thing he wanted to perform for this audience of pretty young women was the dismal ballad of his career. He asked Penelope how she got her job, and when she first met Lily, and how she met her husband, Porter, and soon he was safely in
the background, listening to the girls talk about their holidays, their families, and, in Sally’s and Penelope’s cases, their men. He enjoyed eavesdropping on their complaints and enjoyed even more overhearing their heated discussion about their hair cutters and the styles they were trying to impose on them, and was also surprised by the sincerity of their interest in William Styron’s forthcoming novel,
Sophie’s Choice,
which three of them had read in manuscript. They actually seemed to care whether the book was good for its own sake, unlike members of his family and Bernard and every other writer he had ever met. They didn’t twist the experience of reading into a byzantine reference to their ambitions or their complicated opinions of the world. In general they displayed a charming democratic leveling of worries: they moved effortlessly, and with equal concern, from whether it was worth having your toenails painted in winter to whether Jimmy Carter’s presidency meant we’d have peace in Jerusalem.

“You’re being so good,” Margaret said at one point. “Isn’t Enrique being patient?”

“He’s great,” Penelope said. “Porter would rather shoot himself than listen to us gossip.”

Enrique smiled at the women, a demure smile that he hoped would imply he was being kind to tolerate them, when in truth he was relieved and grateful to be surrounded by all this femaleness, by their fragrance, their tousles of red and black and blond and brown hair, and to listen to the quartet of their musical voices—Margaret’s briskness, Sally’s bafflement, Lily’s warmth, and Penelope’s doubtfulness—and to steal glances at their white necks, their young breasts, their small hands, and their heartbreakingly fragile wrists and delicate fingers. They got bored with the brunch sooner than he did. After three hours they were ready to leave and graciously credited him for making the gathering so entertaining. That was a transparent lie since he had been quiet
almost the entire time, but they did seem reluctant to split up, all agreeing to walk to the West Fourth Street subway station before Margaret and Enrique would peel off.

The group turned east outside the restaurant, and Enrique, without giving it any thought, put his arm around Margaret’s thin shoulders and tugged her close to him. She snuggled within the crook of his arm, presumably grateful to have the tall shield of his body against the January wind. When he glanced at the others, he saw they were all staring at him instead of walking toward Sixth Avenue. Before the trio got going, they smiled, all three at once, as if an announcement had been made. Didn’t they realize I was with her? he wondered. He thought the story of their date had made that clear. By the time they separated, they had gotten over their surprise and were chatting merrily again about how their hair, their jobs, their men were all disasters. Each one kissed him on the cheek, and Lily gave him a firm hug and said, “You’re so tall!” He felt as if he had been welcomed into a friendly foreign land.