An American Love Story (47 page)

“Don’t leave your plates for me to clean up,” she said.

“I was going to do it later.”

“You were not. You always leave everything for me, and you leave your coffee cup in the bathroom.”

“Nag, nag, nag,” he said pleasantly, and put his dirty dishes into the machine.

“I work too, you know,” Bambi said.

“A liberated woman.”

“Damn right. And I pay the rent on this house, and I buy the groceries.”

“You should,” Clay said. “I still have to pay for my apartment even though I don’t live there, I pay for all our dinners in restaurants, and your expense account, I pay the rent on the office, and I pay your salary.”

“My salary is not a present!”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You certainly implied it.” For the first time she was really upset.

“What happened to the little girl who said she would be happy to work for nothing?”

“I almost do work for nothing, and I’m embarrassed to have to lie about my salary.”

“Everybody in this town lies about everything,” Clay said.

She groaned and made a face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you getting your period?”

“I hate when you say that!” Bambi screamed. “You know I hate when you say that! Biology is not destiny. Freud was a stupid shit and so are most men.”

“Me too?”

She looked at him for a moment to torture him, and then she smiled. Of course not him, she loved and respected him. She just liked to push him around once in a while because it gave her such
an incredible sense of power. “Except you,” she said. “In spite of a few really grotesque remarks you make.”

He came over and put his arms around her. Some of his coffee sloshed onto the Sunday
Times
before he put the cup down. Oh shit, she thought, and I haven’t read it yet. She curled into his arms and made a noise in her throat. “Are you a tiger?” he said.

“No. You know what I am.”

“You’re a cat.”

“No.”

“You’re … Bambi! The little wonder deer!”

She nodded. “And your partner.”

“Forever. I love you,” Clay said.

“I love you too.”

“I know it’s frustrating,” he said, “not getting anything off the ground. This is a very slow business. You just have to learn to be tough, like me. I’m wise, I’m patient, I know how to play the game. I’m teaching you things. We’ll get something on this year, you’ll see. I’ll be wise and you be tough.”

“I’ve been struggling all my life,” Bambi said. “I’m tough.”

“Good.”

“I don’t know why we can’t get anyone to do that Susan Josephs book,” she said. “I still think it’s timely. Women are still being abused.”

“Television goes in cycles,” Clay said. “We’ll get another chance.”

“And ‘White Collar, White Powder.’ We don’t have to do all the people, we could do one, and it could be a movie of the week instead of a miniseries. I’d like to develop the story about the woman stockbroker.”

“Why don’t you do that,” Clay said.

“Could I try to write the script?”

“If you like.”

“Oh, good. And then we’ll get it on and I’ll have my first credit at last.”

“That’s the spirit.” He moved away. “Well,” he said, smiling, “that’s settled, everybody’s happy, I can take my shower and then we’ll get to work.”

“You know what I think?” Bambi said. “I think
you
are the Jaguar type.”

“What’s the Jaguar type?”

“An executive. Someone sophisticated, a little older. I am definitely the vintage Thunderbird type. I would be happy to buy it from you.”

“Oh honey, my car is a mess. It needs a paint job.”

“I’d paint it red,” Bambi said.

“You’d paint my beautiful car
red
?”

“So no one would know it used to be yours. I need my own image.”

“Never mind image, what about safety? It doesn’t handle like a new car.”

“A new Jag would. You hate the windy little roads and the big hills. I’m used to them. I think you should buy a new Jaguar and sell me your T-Bird.”

“Sell it to you,” he said.

She looked at him with her big soft brown eyes. “I have money.”

“I know.” He chuckled. “Little deer. Sprinting away from the hunters, lickety-split, safe and sound. I’d never sell it to you. I’ll give it to you.”

“Give!” Her heart leaped. This was the best present she’d ever had in her entire life. “Oh, Clay!”

“I love you,” he said.

“Oh, I love you too. And I want to go with you tomorrow to buy your new Jag. I think it should be a dark forest green.”

“Nobody could ever accuse you of not being in a hurry,” Clay said, amused.

“Before you change your mind,” Bambi said. Now she had to think of something unique to put on the personalized license plate she was going to get for it. Not “Bambi.” People would think she worked for Disney. It should be something subtle but her.

Clay went into the bathroom and she sat there at the kitchen table thoughtfully. Somehow the scene popped into her mind of that day so long ago when she and Simon had gone to buy her white lace dress. The first time she’d defied her parents and become
her own person … But it was Simon who had encouraged her, persuaded her, planned it. This time she had gotten something she wanted all by herself. Sweet sixteen was a millennium ago.

She suddenly realized what she had done. As they said in the business, she certainly knew how to close a deal.

32

1987—NEW YORK AND EAST HAMPTON

L
aura had never felt such peace as she had these last months living with Tanya and Edward. She no longer had to obsess about Clay, because he was gone; and she no longer wondered what she had done wrong, because she knew he was gay. He still called her once in a while to say hello and complain about his big expenses and his stagnating career. He had done nothing further about their divorce. For her part she would have been glad to have it over with, but he was unwilling. She supposed it made no difference to him since he couldn’t marry a man.

“I didn’t get any valentines,” he complained after Valentine’s Day.

“Not even from Anwar?” Laura had asked merrily. He didn’t answer. But of course he was sensitive about it.

She remembered all the years Nina had painstakingly made valentines to send to her daddy; and the other cards, for Easter, Halloween, birthdays, and Christmas, the only one she could give to him in person. The cards always said
he was the best daddy in the world, and how much Nina loved him. It was so obvious they were more a plea than a reward. But that was all the past, and for now Laura was relaxing in a strife-free limbo she had never known could exist for her. She was being taken care of, she was with family, she had the undemanding childhood home she had never had as a child.

It was different from her summer house in East Hampton, where she was the hostess and in charge. Here she had her own little room. Ricky’s room, Tanya had reminded her—“Remember Ricky? I miss him sometimes.”

“Don’t you dare,” Laura had said.

She had thought she would be unhappy here in Tanya’s disorder, among taste that was far from her own, but it was relaxing; a giving up of her will. She liked having few possessions, the others safely stored until she could make up her mind. She read their books and listened to their music, she ate their food (the little she ever ate), she looked forward to coming home from ballet class knowing she would not be alone. She had taken her pills out of the shower curtain and now kept them in a locked metal box in her closet. It looked as if it contained keepsakes, legal papers, nothing anyone would ever ask about. She hid the key. In the late afternoons she went out and bought Tanya and Edward flowers and candy and champagne.

She had decided not to stay in East Hampton all alone this summer, and instead went up weekends with Tanya and Edward. Sometimes Nina and Stevie came too. Laura was not fond of Stevie. Instead of a hostess gift he brought all his dirty laundry up with him on the train, washed it in her machine, and threw the empty detergent bottle into the trash without ever telling her there was no more or thinking of replacing it. He did nothing else around the house and made Nina wait on him. Although Nina kept insisting he was sweet and had other redeeming features, Laura hoped he would never be her son-in-law.

“We should get jobs in the fall,” Tanya said one day.

Laura looked at her. A job as a medium might be suitable. “You sound like the
I Love Lucy
show,” she said. “What kind of silly job could we do?”

“You should have more self-respect than that,” Tanya said. “There’s a lot of help needed in this world. We could feed the homeless again.”

“Edward won’t let you. You keep trying to take them home.”

“I wish I could take them
all
home. What about going to the hospital and playing with little abandoned children with AIDS?”

“The hospital threw you out when you started laying hands on them and chanting and made them cry,” Laura reminded her. “Maybe you could do that with consenting adults, but you frighten kids.”

“I don’t. I never frightened Nina.”

“She grew up with you.” She noticed Tanya’s downcast face and felt guilty. “Oh Tanya, you’re so good, so sweet.” She put her arm around Tanya and hugged her. “It’s just that you’re a bit too much of an individualist.”

“I don’t know when they made that a crime,” Tanya said. “And you’re not so conventional either.”

“Oh yes I am,” Laura said. And believed it. It was the circumstances outside her that were always a little off; she had wanted the most normal things in the world—a husband, a child, a home, people to love. Life had simply betrayed her.

“Conventional? Look at you. You’re so thin the nurses at the hospital thought
you
had AIDS.”

“Oh Tanya, don’t make bad jokes,” Laura said.

“I’m not. I worry about you, even though I don’t say anything because I know it upsets you. And Edward worries even more than I do.”

“I don’t do it to make you suffer,” Laura said sharply.

“It’s just that we love you,” Tanya said. “We want you around for a long, long time.”

“I intend to be.”

They dropped it then because there was nothing more to say. Tanya enrolled in another course. And Laura renewed her prescriptions at two different pharmacies. She had heard the government was going to make the rules about medication much more stringent soon, and she wondered how they expected people like her to survive.

In August, Edward took two weeks off from the office and the three of them went to East Hampton. It was such fun; the long days filled with physical activity under sunny blue skies, the cozy nights falling asleep to the sound of the waves, no need to rush to leave, no fear that they would leave her. It was the best of both worlds. Laura felt that she was handling her life very well.

She and Tanya were cutting up vegetables for the salad before the cocktail hour and Edward was taking his customary afternoon run. She thought how generous it was of them never to ask when she thought she might get her own apartment. On the other hand, she would do the same for them if they had to try to get their lives in order. And the beach house was their house too. “Shall we have some music?” Tanya asked.

“I’ll do it.”

Laura went to put on an album, stopping for a moment to admire the view from her front door. And there, unexpectedly, was Edward, pale and frightened, walking slowly toward the house as if he could hardly keep his balance.

“Edward?” She ran to him and he leaned on her like an old man. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Laura brought him into the living room and he lowered himself into a chair. “I was running, and all of a sudden the road came up to meet me. I had to sit down on the edge of the grass. Everything was coming at me in a kind of rocking motion, and I couldn’t see right.”

“And now?” she asked, concerned.

“I still can’t.”

Tanya came rushing over, wiping her hands. “It’s too hot to run today,” she said. “You lie down and I’ll bring you some water.”

“And three aspirins please,” Edward said weakly. “I have a terrible headache.”

He could hardly get from the chair to the couch. The aspirins did nothing for his headache, and when it was time for dinner he was unable to eat. He went right to bed. Tanya sat by his side and put her healing hands on his head, but they did nothing either. “It must be a virus,” Tanya said. “I’ll make you an herb tea.”

“My mouth tastes metallic,” Edward said.

“Well, you haven’t eaten for hours.”

“No, it’s not that kind of a taste. It’s … strange.”

“I think we should call a doctor,” Laura said.

“No,” Edward said. “Let’s wait and see.”

The next morning when he tried to get out of bed he felt dizzy again, but he had no fever and they didn’t know what to think. Tanya’s medicinal teas only made him queasy. His headache had never stopped. Laura insisted on calling the doctor who lived down the street; he was a friendly neighbor who gave everyone lettuces from his garden when they all matured at once, and since it was the weekend he was at home and Edward’s own doctor was off somewhere.

Dr. Samuels, the neighbor-doctor, appeared in shorts with a peeling nose, looking kind. He examined Edward alone and asked him questions while Tanya and Laura hovered outside the bedroom door, and then he told them they could come in. “I want you to take him into the city Monday and have him see a neurologist,” he said. He wrote a name on a piece of paper. “I’ll call Dr. Nelson for you and have him fit Edward in.”

“A neurologist?” they both said. “Why? What’s wrong with him?” They were tumbling over each other with worry.

“As I’ve told Edward, I think he should have an X ray,” Dr. Samuels said. “Maybe a CAT scan.”

“A CAT scan on what?” Tanya asked.

“His head.”

“What’s wrong with his head?”

“I’d like to know what’s going on in his brain. There seems to be some pressure there.”

Laura felt as if the blood were draining from her body. She looked at Edward and he smiled at her reassuringly and shrugged. “But how could that happen so quickly?”