The time traveler's wife (34 page)

(7:00 a.m.)

Clare: I wake up in my bed, the bed of my
childhood. As I float on the surface of waking I can't find myself in time; is
it Christmas, Thanksgiving? Is it third grade, again? Am I sick? Why is it
raining? Outside the yellow curtains the sky is dead and the big elm tree is
being stripped of its yellow leaves by the wind. I have been dreaming all
night. The dreams merge, now. In one part of this dream I was swimming in the
ocean, I was a mermaid. I was sort of new at being a mermaid and one of the
other mermaids was trying to teach me; she was giving me mermaid lessons. I was
afraid to breathe under water. The water got into my lungs and I couldn't
figure out how it was supposed to work, it felt terrible and I kept having to
rise up to the surface and breathe and the other mermaid kept saying, No,
Clare, like this.. .until finally I realized that she had gills in her neck,
and I did too, and then it was better. Swimming was like flying, all the fish
were birds...There was a boat on the surface of the ocean, and we all swam up
to see the boat. It was just a little sailboat, and my mother was on it, all by
herself. I swam up to her and she was surprised to see me there, she said Why
Clare, I thought you were getting married today, and I suddenly realized, the
way you do in dreams, that I couldn't get married to Henry if I was a mermaid,
and I started to cry, and then I woke up and it was the middle of the night. So
I lay there for a while in the dark and I made up that I became a regular
woman, like the Little Mermaid except I didn't have any of that nonsense about
hideous pain in my feet or getting my tongue cut out. Hans Christian Andersen
must have been a very strange and sad person. Then I went back to sleep and now
I am in bed and Henry and I are getting married today.

(7:16 a.m.)

Henry: The ceremony is at 2:00 p.m. and it will
take me about half an hour to dress and twenty minutes for us to drive over to
St. Basil's. It is now 7:16 a.m., which leaves five hours and forty-four
minutes to kill. I throw on jeans and a skanky old flannel shirt and high-tops
and creep as quietly as possible downstairs seeking coffee. Dad has beat me to
it; he's sitting in the breakfast room with his hands wrapped around a dainty
cup of steaming black joe. I pour one for myself and sit across from him.
Through the lace-curtained windows the weak light gives Dad a ghostly look;
he's a colorized version of a black and white movie of himself this morning.
His hair is standing up every which way and without thinking I smooth mine
down, as though he were a mirror. He does the same, and we smile.

(8:17 a.m.)

Clare: Alicia is sitting on my bed, poking me.
"Come on, Clare," she pokes. "Daylight in the swamp. The birds
are singing," (quite untrue) "and the frogs are jumping and it's time
to get up!" Alicia is tickling me. She throws off the covers and we are
wrestling and just as I pin her Etta sticks her head in the door and hisses "Girls!
What is all this bumping? Your father, he thinks a tree fell on the house, but
no, it is you sillies trying to kill each other. Breakfast is almost
ready." With that Etta abruptly withdraws her head and we hear her barging
down the stairs as we dissolve into laughter.

(8:32 a.m.)

Henry: It's still blowing gales out there but I
am going running anyway. I study the map of South Haven ("A shining jewel
on the Sunset Coast of Lake Michigan!") which Clare has provided me with.
Yesterday I ran along the beach, which was pleasant but not something to do
this morning. I can see six-foot-tall waves throwing themselves at the shore. I
measure out a mile of streets and figure I will run laps; if it's too awful out
there I can cut it short. I stretch out. Every joint pops. I can almost hear
tension crackling in my nerves like static in a phone line. I get dressed, and
out into the world I go. The rain is a slap in the face. I am drenched
immediately. I soldier slowly down Maple Street. It's just going to be a slog;
I am fighting the wind and there's no way to get up any speed. I pass a woman
standing at the curb with her bulldog and she looks at me with amazement. This
isn't mere exercise, I tell her silently. This is desperation.

(8:54 a.m.)

Clare: We're gathered around the breakfast
table. Cold leaks in from all the windows, and I can barely see outside, it's
raining so hard. How is Henry going to run in this?

"Perfect weather for a wedding," Mark
jokes. I shrug. " I didn't pick it."

"You didn't?"

" Daddy picked it."

"Well, I'm paying for it," Daddy says
petulantly. "True." I munch my toast. My mother eyes my plate
critically. "Honey, why don't you have some nice bacon? And some of these
eggs?" The very thought turns my stomach. "I can't. Really.
Please."

"Well, at least put some peanut butter on
that toast. You need protein." I make eye contact with Etta, who strides
into the kitchen and comes back a minute later with a tiny crystal dish full of
peanut butter. I thank her and spread some on the toast. I ask my mother, "Do
I have any time before Janice shows up?" Janice is going to do something
hideous to my face and hair.

"She's coming at eleven. Why?"

"I need to run into Town, to get
something."

"I can get it for you, sweetie." She
looks relieved at the thought of getting out of the house. "I would like
to go, myself." "We can both go."

"By myself." I mutely plead with her.
She's puzzled but relents. "Well, okay. Goodness."

"Great. I'll be right back." I get up
to leave. Daddy clears his throat. "May I be excused?"
"Certainly." "Thank you." I flee.

(9:35 a.m.)

Henry: I'm standing in the immense, empty
bathtub struggling out of my cold, soaked clothes. My brand new running shoes
have acquired an entirely new shape, reminiscent of marine life. I have left a
trail of water from the front door to the tub, which I hope Mrs. Blake won't
mind too much. Someone knocks on my door. "Just a minute," I call. I
squoosh over to the door and crack it open. To my complete surprise, it's
Clare. "What's the password?" I say softly.

"Fuck me," replies Clare. I swing the
door wide. Clare walks in, sits on the bed, and starts taking off her shoes.

"You're not joking?"

"Come on, O almost-husband mine. I've got
to be back by eleven." She looks me up and down. "You went running! I
didn't think you'd run in this rain."

"Desperate times call for desperate
measures." I peel off my T-shirt and throw it into the tub. It lands with
a splat. "Isn't it supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the bride
before the wedding?"

"So close your eyes." Clare trots into
the bathroom and grabs a towel. I lean over and she dries my hair. It feels
wonderful. I could do with a lifetime of this. Yes, indeed.

"It's really cold up here," says
Clare.

"Come and be bedded, almost-wife. It's the
only warm spot in the whole place." We climb in. "We do everything
out of order, don't we?" "You have a problem with that?"

"No. I like it."

"Good. You've come to the right man for
all your extra-chronological needs."

(11:15 a.m.)

Clare: I walk in the back door and leave my
umbrella in the mud room. In the hall I almost bump into Alicia. "Where
have you been? Janice is here."

"What time is it?"

"Eleven-fifteen. Hey, you've got your
shirt on backward and inside out." "I think that's good luck, isn't
it?"

"Maybe, but you'd better change it before
you go upstairs." I duck back into the mud room and reverse my shirt. Then
I run upstairs. Mama and Janice are standing in the hall outside my room.
Janice is carrying a huge bag of cosmetics and other implements of torture.

"There you are. I was getting
worried." Mama shepherds me into my room and Janice brings up the rear.
"I have to go talk to the caterers." She is almost wringing her hands
as she departs. I turn to Janice, who examines me critically. "Your hair's
all wet and tangled. Why don't you comb it out while I set up?" She starts
to take a million tubes and bottles from her bag and sets them on my dresser.

"Janice." I hand her the postcard
from the Uffizi. "Can you do this?" I have always loved the little
Medici princess whose hair is not unlike mine; hers has many tiny braids and
pearls all swooped together in a beautiful fall of amber hair. The anonymous
artist must have loved her, too. How could he not love her? Janice considers.
"This isn't what your mom thinks we're doing."

"Uh-huh. But it's my wedding. And my hair.
And I'll give you a very large tip if you do it my way." "I won't
have time to do your face if we do this; it'll take too long to do all these
braids." Hallelujah. "It's okay. I'll put on my own makeup."

"Well, all right. Just comb it for me and
we'll get started." I begin to pick out the tangles. I'm starting to enjoy
this. As I surrender to Janice's slender brown hands I wonder what Henry is up
to.

(11:36 a.m.)

Henry: The tux and all its attendant miseries
are laid out on the bed. I'm freezing my undernourished ass off in this cold
room. I throw all my cold wet clothing out of the tub and into the sink. This
bathroom is amazingly as big as the bedroom. It's carpeted, and relentlessly
pseudo- Victorian. The tub is an immense claw-footed thing amid various ferns
and stacks of towels and a commode and a large framed reproduction of Hunt's
The Awakened Conscience. The windowsill is six inches from the floor and the
curtains are filmy white muslin, so I can see Maple Street in all its dead
leafy glory. A beige Lincoln Continental cruises lazily up the street. I run
hot water into the tub, which is so large that I get tired of waiting for it to
fill and climb in. I amuse myself playing with the European-style shower
attachment and taking the caps off the ten or so shampoos, shower gels, and
conditioners and sniffing them all; by the fifth one I have a headache. I sing
Yellow Submarine. Everything within a four-foot radius gets wet.

(12:35p.m.)

Clare: Janice releases me, and Mama and Etta
converge. Etta says, "Oh, Clare, you look beautiful!" Mama says,
"That's not the hairstyle we agreed on, Clare." Mama gives Janice a
hard time and then pays her and I give Janice her tip when Mama's not looking.
I'm supposed to get dressed at the church, so they pack me into the car and we
drive over to St. Basil's.

(12:55p.m.) (Henry is 38)

Henry: I'm walking along Highway 12, about two
miles south of South Haven. It's an unbelievably awful day, weather-wise. It's
fall, rain is gusting and pouring down in sheets, and it's cold and windy. I'm
wearing nothing but jeans, I'm barefoot, and I am soaked to the skin. I have no
idea where I am in time. I'm headed for Meadowlark House, hoping to dry out in
the Reading Room and maybe eat something. I have no money, but when I see the
pink neon light of the Cut-Rate Gas for Less sign I veer toward it. I enter the
gas station and stand for a moment, streaming water onto the linoleum and
catching my breath.

"Quite a day to be out in " says the
thin elderly gent behind the counter.

"Yep " I reply.

"Car break down?"

"Huh? Um, no." He's taking a good
look at me, noting the bare feet, the unseasonable clothing. I pause, feign
embarrassment. "Girlfriend threw me out of the house."

He says something but I don't hear it because I
am looking at the South Haven Daily. Today is Saturday, October 23,1993. Our
wedding day. The clock above the cigarette rack says 1:10.

"Gotta run," I say to the old man,
and I do.

(1:42 p.m.)

Clare: I'm standing in my fourth grade
classroom wearing my wedding dress. It's ivory watered silk with lots of lace
and seed pearls. The dress is tightly fitted in the bodice and arms but the
skirt is huge, floor-length with a train and twenty yards of fabric. I could
hide ten midgets under it. I feel like a parade float, but Mama is making much
of me; she's fussing and taking pictures and trying to get me to put on more
makeup. Alicia and Charisse and Helen and Ruth are all fluttering around in
their matching sage green velvet bridesmaids' outfits. Since Charisse and Ruth
are both short and Alicia and Helen are both tall they look like some oddly
assorted Girl Scouts but we've all agreed to be cool about it when Mama's
around. They are comparing the dye jobs on their shoes and arguing about who
should get to catch the bouquet. Helen says, "Charisse, you're already
engaged, you shouldn't even be trying to catch it," and Charisse shrugs
and says, "Insurance. With Gomez you never know."