After the Reunion (19 page)

“I’ll try,” Chris said.

She always felt better, though, after she left Dr. Fields’s office. She felt she had a future again. She would stop at home for her meager breakfast, and then go down to her own office. Usually she was so cheerful that she walked.

She had made certain changes at home which reflected the transition she was making to her new, independent life. The first thing she had done was to move out of Alexander’s bed. She bought one of those upholstered beds that looked like a couch, but when you removed the cushions (and her many needlepoint pillows) it was a comfortable three-quarter bed, and she put it into the den. Nicholas had his own television set now, in his bedroom, and Chris moved the bar things into the living room. When she and Alexander had their wine before dinner—if they ever did anymore, since she was dieting and he usually had his somewhere else with James—they did so in the living room. If they had guests, they entertained in the living room and dining room, and no one thought anything of it. Chris’s personal things were in the bathroom off the den, the few clothes she could wear hung in the den closets, her books and work were on the tables. It was her own space, her own self-respect.

It was Chris’s Room.

How long ago, that secret room Alexander had kept in his Paris apartment, called Alexander’s Room, where he lived his hidden life … How innocent she had been, following him to Paris, waiting … And the day she had arrived unexpectedly at his apartment and had seen the boy, and Alexander’s Room, that other terrible November. It was so long ago they were two different people now, she and Alexander. Now she had her own private place. There was nothing forbidden to hide there, but it didn’t matter.

Alexander didn’t mind that she had her own room now. It took some of the strain off their relationship. Nicholas worried, of course. Chris told him she and Alexander kept such different hours it was easier for her to have a room of her own—for her work. She said she and Alexander wanted separate lives for a while, but that they were still a family and they loved each other. It didn’t fool Nicholas a bit. He waited for the divorce, like someone waiting for the other shoe to drop, and nothing Chris and Alexander said could reassure him.

The irony was that they had no intention of getting a divorce. They were just trying to survive.

At Chris’s office Cameron seemed to be around more often. He would come in to say hello on his way to or from meetings, and then finally he invited her out to lunch. It secretly amused her that their lunches were starting again now that she was looking like her former self. When she ordered her chef’s salad with only turkey and cheese, no ham—and without dressing—and then wrote down what she had eaten on her little list, he watched with interest.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Cameron said. “It takes a lot of courage.”

“And a high threshold of pain,” Chris said, laughing. “I sit in my doctor’s office and talk to other patients sometimes, and they say they’re not hungry after a few weeks. It never happened to me. I don’t remember being hungry when I was thin, except before meals and that’s normal. But apparently by the time you get thin you’re used to this deprivation, and maintenance seems like an enormous amount of food.”

“You should write an article about it for the magazine,” he said.

“Me? I don’t write.”

“You could write this. It’s your own experience. Besides, you do rewriting on things, I’ve seen your work. It’s good.”

He was so enthusiastic Chris began to think she could really do it. She remembered how he’d hired her, in an instant of instinct, and how he’d been right about what she could do. Maybe she
could
do a diet article. How brilliant did it have to be? She could get some anecdotes from Dr. Fields, and she certainly had plenty of her own.

“We’ve used my doctor a lot before, though,” she said.

“Don’t try to weasel out of it. This is going to be your story, not his. Besides, he’s a good doctor, and I don’t care how often we use him.”

“Okay,” she said.

In the long evenings, struggling with her piece after dinner, while Alexander was out, Chris was both frightened and happy. She wanted to please Cameron and not look like a fool, but he was so sure she would succeed that there was more warm anticipation of his approval than fear. He had become a sort of mentor. Perhaps he always had been. She allowed herself to think about how nice he was, and then at last the sexual feelings started to return, and she sat there gazing into space over her typewriter like a schoolgirl. The only thing that could bring her back to her work was remembering it was for him.

This wasn’t what she had planned. She didn’t want to be dependent on any man again. It was crazy. But she had always liked Cameron—he wasn’t just a haven she was running to. She had run
away
from him. Somehow she managed to finish the article.

Cameron loved it. He said it was not only informative but wickedly funny, and that other women would identify with it. Just as Chris was breathing a sigh of relief, he gave her another assignment.

“But I don’t write!” she said again.

“You do now,” he said.

He took her for a drink after work. They went to a small, dark pub near the office; no place special, just a quick, casual drink, not a date. They sat at the bar on those uncomfortable high stools, instead of at a table. Chris looked at the bowl of peanuts and salivated. She ordered a glass of white wine because she was allowed three a week and this would be one of them. You couldn’t give up everything in life. Besides, being with Cameron was like a party; even in this place.

“My wife is having a formal dinner tonight,” he said. “I have to rush home and get dressed up. Otherwise I would have taken you to ‘21’ for drinks.”

“Your wife,” Chris said. “That’s an odd way of saying it. Not, ‘
We
’ are having a formal dinner.”

“But we aren’t,” he said blandly. “She is. She loves to give dinner parties. Her friends are all boring. I would rather go to bed and read.”

The wine had gone to Chris’s head immediately and it made her brave. She thought how ironic it was that when she was young she had said outrageous things because she couldn’t stop them from popping out of her mouth, and then she had become a circumspect adult who now needed a little help before she could be herself. “You never struck me as henpecked,” she said.

“I’m not,” Cameron said, not at all offended. “I’m gracious. I go to her boring social events and she leaves me alone.”

“Are you happy?” Chris blurted out.

He smiled. “Are you?”

“I asked you first,” she said.

“I suppose so. I love my kids. They’re very young. I was married before, but never had children. I could be my kids’ grandfather. I guess that’s why I enjoy them so much; I can afford expensive nannies to take them away.”

“You’re awful,” Chris said.

“Half kidding, half awful,” he said. “And you?”

“What?”

“Are you happy?”

“If I were, do you think I would have turned myself into a blimp?” she said lightly.

“Other people have been ecstatically happy doing it,” Cameron said. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you know.”

“I never give up,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“Just that.” He looked at his watch and asked for the check. “If you don’t want it to, it doesn’t have to mean anything at all.”

Oh God, she thought.

She thought about it at home that night, and in the office during the day, and she knew he meant that he was still interested in her. It was June again, and the sales conference was coming. This year it was to be in Los Angeles. If anything were to happen, it would be there. She couldn’t imagine cheating on Alexander in New York—it was just too close to him—even though being close to her had never stopped
him
.

Now that they were spending every weekend in the country, she had taken over one of the guest rooms in their country house for her own. Their physical separation was now complete. Alexander was friendly and warm with her, much the way he had been all those years ago in Paris when she had discovered his secret life, and it occurred to Chris with a heavy feeling of sadness that they had come full circle. They should have been best friends, like Max and Annabel; not lovers, not married. But Alexander was never like Max, and could never accept himself or his life. And she was not like Annabel, resilient, open to change. She was doomed to be in love with one man, forever, no matter how he treated her.

She was, however, allowed to have a crush on another. She had decided that, and knowing it made her feel alternately terrified and euphoric. She had never had so much energy. She was doing extra work at the office between her regular duties as Managing Editor and the articles she was now writing, she was walking both there and back, she seemed to need very little sleep. Nicholas had decided to spend the summer away from them again, at tennis camp with some friends from school, and Chris thought it was probably best. Alexander suggested that instead of he and Chris taking a trip during the summer they wait until Nicholas came home and then the three of them could go somewhere together.

“Just like the old days,” he said.

She wondered if he wouldn’t rather be able to take his vacation with James. “Yes,” she agreed kindly. “Just like the old days.”

She had lunch with Annabel, who was still alone, still gamely trying to recover from being ditched by Dean.

“Los Angeles with Cameron, eh?” Annabel said. “Are you going to run away again?”

“Maybe he won’t want me.”

“You never think any man will want you.”

“Do you realize it’s been a whole stupid year?” Chris said. “Can I consider this a long courtship?”

Annabel laughed. “If it makes you feel less guilty, by all means.”

Chris thought about it. “I don’t know
if
I’m going to feel guilty, or
how
guilty, and I don’t care,” she said finally. “All I know is, this time I’m not going to run away.”

Chapter Sixteen

After the Caldwells returned from their ski trip to Vail, Daphne brought Elizabeth back to the home as she had promised. The child had to go to school, didn’t she? Elizabeth was all smiles and bubbling glee. She unpacked her suitcase, hugged Jane Baldwin and her friends, and ran around making sure nothing had changed during her enforced absence. Daphne watched with a sinking heart. This place was where Elizabeth’s school was; but it was apparently where everything else she cared about was too.

Daphne continued to bring her home every weekend. After a few months Elizabeth realized that her visits were only temporary; she was not a prisoner; and she became less unhappy and less obstreperous, but she still packed her suitcase and sat by the door every morning, not knowing exactly when she would be allowed to leave. Despite Elizabeth’s improved behavior, Richard absented himself more and more, saying he had business in the city. Daphne realized he was forcing her to make a choice; and that was unfair. The boys were all away at school and she was alone. She began looking for a good day school in Connecticut for a retarded child.

It was June now, time to make a decision for the fall if she intended to keep Elizabeth at home. The boys were back for summer vacation. The house was filled with their activity, their friends. None of them seemed to mind Elizabeth—they were too busy. It was Richard who minded, who made excuses when Daphne wanted to invite people to their customary summer barbecues, who finally agreed to a social life only if Elizabeth would not eat with them. Daphne refused to leave her out, and so a “compromise” was reached: the boys would not be there either.

Daphne felt as if she were always juggling everyone’s social life, trying to keep them all in the right places on schedule. Luckily now both Matthew and Sam were allowed to drive. Richard bought them a car to share. It was only Teddy who needed to be taken to meet his friends and brought back. She had wanted to live in the country with Richard and a houseful of happy children. Instead she was Mussolini trying to make the trains run on time.

And for what? For a fantasy? Richard had turned into a stranger. Even his lovemaking was mechanical, almost as if he might as well have sex with her since she was there. For Daphne, who was stung and saddened by this new difference, she would have told him not to bother, but it was her only way of communicating with him now.

And what did everyone talk about when they finally did have an evening with other adults? Drugs. Problems with their kids. Even one of Teddy’s friends—so young!—had been caught with drugs. Ever since that incident, the parents, without wanting to admit it, had taken up a sort of subtle spying. When you were in your child’s room, putting away clean clothes perhaps, you looked around. You paid attention. Better now than later. Even though it could never happen to
your
child … could it?

It was a Saturday, hot, quiet. Richard had gone to a friend’s country club to play golf. In the perfect life of the Caldwell family, which seemed so long ago now, they were their own country club, and needed no other. But now they were scattered. The boys were at the beach. Elizabeth was playing morosely in her room. At the home she would have had other children to play with. Daphne felt guilty and selfish. Maybe all of this had been a mistake. She wandered into each of her sons’ rooms in turn, looking casually, hoping to find nothing illegal or destructive.

If she had looked in Jonathan’s room while he was alive, would she have found some clue to what was to happen? She refused to let herself think about it again. But she did, she thought about it almost all the time, at the back of her mind while she thought she was thinking about other things.

And then, poking about in Teddy’s dresser drawer like a thief, Daphne found his secret journal.

She really didn’t mean to read it, just glance into it to see what it was. But when she saw the first line she was struck as if by a blow to the heart, and she sat down on his bed to read on. She read it all, all, and long before she was finished tears were streaming down her face.

“
Nobody in this family ever talks about the things that really bother them or the things that really matter.
”