Crazy in Love (14 page)

“Me? I’m doubting nothing about us,” I said.

“About me then. You don’t trust me. I hate that, Georgie. I call you up, and I sense you waiting for the worst. You’re just waiting for a suspicious tone of voice or for me to tell you I have to stay overnight in New York, or that I have to go to London. Then, when I tell you, I know that I’m just confirming what you knew all along: that I don’t want to be with you. Try to deny that.”

“It’s not true. I’m disappointed, of course, when we can’t be together. But I know it’s out of your control.”

“But what if it’s not out of my control? What if I think it’s better that I go alone to London? I can concentrate better if I know you’re not sitting in the hotel, watching the clock, wondering if I’ll get back before the restaurants close.”

“Oh my God,” I said, thinking it was exactly what Helen had said. I hated her at that moment, and I hated Nick. It didn’t matter that I had expected something awful to happen; nothing could have prepared me for this.

“While I’m gone this time we need to do some serious thinking. I can’t go on this way, hearing doubt in your voice all the time.”

When my father had taken the job with Ordaco, he was always away from home; I had felt relieved, because it had diffused the tensions between him and Honora, serious tensions that might have led to a real separation. But this relatively short business trip of Nick’s terrified me; it sounded like he was proposing separation, the emotional kind where two people go to their corners to consider the state of their love.

“Nick, don’t do this,” I said softly.

“Don’t do what? Don’t go to London? Or don’t feel so unhappy? You so badly want things to go your way, there’s no room for my feelings. Do you see that, Georgie? Do you?”

“Unhappy? You feel unhappy?” I heard myself ask.

I was holding my head because I was about to faint. I felt Nick’s warm hand on the back of my neck, pressing downward. “There, put your head between your knees,” he was saying.

Blackness rushed toward me, but then I was all right. I sat up straight. Nick kept his hand on my neck, the fingers gripping lightly. One of them traced a gentle pattern across my skin. I imagined he was spelling “I love you.” His black eyes gleamed; I saw the tears there.

“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked, feeling numb.

“I don’t know,” Nick said.

We made love that night. I thought if I could remind his body of how fine we were together, everything would be all right. We undressed each other in the darkness, seriously, without speaking. Moonlight illuminated his body: his silky skin, the dark hair curling around his penis, which darkened as it grew. I made him lie on his back while my hands rubbed circles on his chest, his abdomen, his thighs. I was the witch, and my hands wrote spells as I lowered my mouth to his erection, crazed with love and danger.

NICK AND THE HUBBARD, STARR
entourage flew to Britain in the morning, so I was shocked to hear John Avery’s voice on the telephone.

“I’m not disturbing you, am I?” he asked.

“No, but I thought—aren’t you supposed to be in London?”

“Not this week. I’m leaving this part of the deal to my able associate, man named Nicholas Symonds. Maybe you know him?”

“Maybe I do,” I said, not at all sure I did.

“I’m calling to tighten the screws. I have arranged two interviews and a photo session for Miss Swift of Observatory renown. Will you do it?”

“I don’t think so, John. I’ve thought about it, and it doesn’t seem right for me. What does someone want pictures of me for, anyway? I can understand an interview, but why pictures?”

“I think it’s a neat angle, a pretty woman who is the Swift Observatory. Excuse me for calling you pretty—I know professional women today think that ability is all, that men shouldn’t notice anything else.”

“That’s okay. Thanks,” I said, wondering whether he was making a mild pass.

“I’ll tell you what—think about the publicity for another day or two, then call me. It would be a terrific thing, to get wide coverage for your endeavor.”

“Yes, well,” I said, anxious to end the conversation. I was sitting on my porch, thinking about Nick and Jean in London without John, which meant dinners for two, not three, when Clare came through the yard. She was wearing a turquoise bathing suit, dark glasses, and rubber thongs.

“Mother has decided today is the perfect day for a picnic. Want to come?”

“Where are you going?”

“Candle Island.” She meant the big rock half a mile offshore. For the first time I noticed the day was cloudless, one of those brilliant blue and gold August days with a breeze just strong enough to move the leaves and stir the stalks of aster and goldenrod.

“I guess so,” I said.

“Are you depressed?” she asked, sitting on the porch step, her back against the railing. Removing her sunglasses, she shielded her eyes to look at me.

“Yes. Very. He’ll be gone for three weeks.”

“You can live with that.”

“Did Nick—do you know if Nick said anything to Donald about the trip?”

“Well, Donald told me that Nick seems upset about something. He didn’t say what, but I got the idea that he’s pretty angry with you.”

“Oh, thanks, Clare! Nick is thousands of miles away, and you tell me something like that. Thanks.”

“Honey, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I think Nick wants to leave me,” I said in a voice so small I could hardly hear it.

“I don’t believe that.”

“I think it’s true. I’m making him miserable. You know why—the way I act when he’s not here. I’m afraid of so many things, Clare.”

“What are you most afraid of?”

“That things will change even more. That Nick and I won’t be together.” The idea was so hideous, I started to shiver. Clare sat on the arm of my wicker chair and put her arm around me. I felt her cheek press against the top of my head.

Honora walked into my yard carrying oars, the plaid beach blanket, and a basket from which protruded a loaf of French bread, a pineapple top, and a bottle of Evian water. She waved to us, then motioned to the pier alongside which our dinghy rocked. “Come on!” she called.

“I don’t feel like a picnic,” I said.

“Please come,” Clare said. “I want you to be with us. I understand why you’re upset, but everything will work out. I know you, and I know Nick. You’ll both figure out how to manage this.”

“I hope so.”

“Come on,” she said. I took her hand and allowed myself to be led toward the boat, noticing the red cross-hatching the wicker had indented in the backs of her bare legs.

At the pier we discussed who would swim and who would row the boat; Clare volunteered to row out if Honora would row back. Once everything was settled, we began our trip. I swam steadily, taking a breath every three strokes, keeping my eyes open and watching the bay’s rock bottom give way to the deep Sound. Clare’s oars splashed, lulling me into memories of other swims out to Candle Island. We always did it in groups of three or more, with someone in the rowboat in case of danger. Strong cramps? Shark attack? Nothing bad had ever happened, but we wanted to be prepared. I was lost in memory when Honora crashed into me. “Sorry, bad radar,” she said, working herself back on course.

Twenty-five minutes later we had arrived at Candle Island. Honora and I clung to the rock, panting, while Clare hauled the scarred old dinghy across seaweed and barnacles to a flat surface. We spread out the blanket, and Honora passed out white tennis hats.

“What a splendid sunny day,” she said.

“Hand me some salami, I’m starved,” Clare said.

“So Nick is in London,” Honora said. “Is it still that top secret deal where he’s not allowed to take you along?”

“Mother—” Clare warned.

“Just because you and Donald have an arrangement that lets you each do your own thing doesn’t mean your sister does. I know she’d rather be in London, and I think she should be. Why don’t you surprise him, take one of those cheapo flights and hide in his hotel room?”

I was the volcano and rage was the lava, and it burst forth, covering everyone in its path. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “For as long as I can remember, you have been training me to sit at my husband’s side, not let him out of my sight for fear that he might look at another woman. Just because your husband had an affair does not mean that all men have them.”

Honora stared at me, shocked. “Georgie, of course they don’t. It’s not true that I ever told you that.”

“It is true,” I said. “It absolutely is and I believed you. I have the most wonderful husband in the world, and I can’t let him out of my sight for mortal fear that he’s going to fuck his secretary or some floozy on the street.”

“Nick wouldn’t do that—I know he wouldn’t. I simply suggested you fly to London because I know you want to be with him.”

“Say what you want, but that’s not the reason.”

“It is! Don’t call me a liar, Georgiana. I think it would be sweet to surprise him that way. I can just see him, dragging home after a hard day in the City, to find you waiting with open arms.”

“If I did that, he would leave me. That is what it has come to. I want to be with him in London more than anything in the world, but if I went there my marriage would be over,” I said, and then I dived into the cool water. I started swimming home, and I didn’t look back to see whether the rowboat was coming after me.

That night Honora knocked at my door. I let her in, and we stood in my kitchen, facing each other. She wore a black velour sweatsuit covered by an embroidered shawl. I had already put on my white nightgown.

“That was a very dangerous thing you did today,” she said finally, “swimming away without the boat.”

“I don’t care.”

“Clare and I followed you, of course, but you were swimming so fast, I’m not sure we could have caught you in time, if something had happened.”

Just like me, Mother—always waiting for something to happen, I thought. Instead I said: “I’m sorry I spoiled the picnic.”

Honora raised her hand, to show me that hadn’t mattered at all. “I want you to tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m not in the mood to talk to you. I’m very tired, and I want to go to bed.”

Honora checked her watch, the big gold one that had been her father’s. “It’s only nine-thirty. You can’t be tired yet.”

“I am. Please go, all right? I’m fine.”

“Listen. Out at Candle Island you accused me of instilling something in you that is going to ruin your marriage. I think you have a responsibility to explain that to me.”

“I’m sorry. I was exaggerating,” I said, thinking that if she didn’t leave I would start crying and never stop.

“Every marriage has ups and downs. Yours has had mainly ups, from what I’ve been able to see, and I’m very grateful for that. Whatever is going on between you and Nick will turn out fine. I have confidence that it will.”

“So do I,” I said, smiling to assure her. She hesitated an instant, then returned my smile, kissed me goodnight, and left. Watching her cross the lawn, I thought of what she had said. What business did she have being “grateful” that my marriage had gone well? I could understand a mother’s desire to see her daughter happy, but gratefulness seemed entirely disproportionate. Entirely wrong. In fact, it made no sense at all unless she knew some secret about why women were essentially unlovable, tricksters who duped men into staying with them.

MY TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS
with Nick that first week had an unfamiliar air of reservation, as though the memory of our last night together and its implicit threat stood between us. He called me just as often, and we talked about all the important things: our work, our health, the Point, the weather. I cannot say that the reserved tone was exclusively his. Rather, I felt myself pulling back, wanting to give him less of myself. In this terrible courtship I was playing hard to get, to make myself seem more desirable.

I doubted that John Avery had intended for me to consider the two days he had given me to think about interviewing a deadline, but I did. Two days after his call, I phoned him at Hubbard, Starr.

“I’ve decided to do it,” I said. “Heaven knows how it’s going to help the Swift Observatory, but I’ll do the interviews.”