Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction (25 page)

“The kids are fine,” Ray said. “Nellie’s got Neil making the beds and Jennifer’s running into the wall about ten times a day. Then she falls down and laughs like a lunatic.”

“Oh, good,” Ellie said, and she looked out the window and sighed.

“Hey, no sighing,” Ray said. “Everything’s all right.”

Ellie said, “No, it’s not. I wanted one more baby. I wanted to be like everyone else. I didn’t want to go into menopause at thirty-three, thank you very much, and I am not looking forward to having Dr. Perlmutter’s hand up my you-know-what every six months for the rest of my life.”

Ray squeezed her hand. “For better or for worse. Isn’t that what we said? So, this is a little bit of worse.”

Ellie tossed his hand aside and squinted at him, like the sexy, fearless WACs he admired when he was a boy, girls who outran and outgunned the guys, even in skirts and heels.

“You think this is worse?” Ellie said. “Oh, shame on me. Sweetie, if this is what worse looks like—we’ll be just fine.”

She’d said the same thing when his blood pressure medication chased away his erections and Viagra brought them back, but not the same. They were unmistakably old-man erections; they were like old men themselves: frail and distracted and unsure. He’d lain in bed with his back to her, ashamed and sorry for himself. Ellie turned on the light to look at him. She had her pink silk nightgown on and her face was shiny with moisturizer. She pulled up on one elbow and leaned around him. He saw the creases at her neck and between her breasts, the tiny pleats at her underarms, the little pillow of flesh under her sharp chin, and he thought, She must be seeing the same thing. She snapped off the light and put her hand on his shoulder.

“So what, Ray? You think this is the worst? You think, finally, we’ve gotten to ‘for worse’?”

Maybe not for you, Ray thought.

“It’s not. It’s not better, but it’s not the worse,” she said.

Eleanor slid her hand under the covers and wrapped her fingers around his cock. She gave a little squeeze, like a salute. She pushed the covers back and pressed him onto his back. She talked while she stroked him. She told him about the guy who had come to do the patio and brought his four giant dogs with him; she told him about seeing one of Neil’s friends from high school who’d said, when she asked how his mother was, Great, she’s out on parole; she told him that she’d heard that young men shaved their balls now. Ray lifted his head and asked her if she would like that. I guess I would, she said. Is it unpleasant otherwise? Ray said. Oh, I don’t know, Ellie said. It’s like a mouthful of wet mitten—what do
you
think? When he stopped laughing, early in the morning, with a faint light falling on Ellie’s silver hair held back with a pink ribbon and her slim, manicured hands, he came.

*  *  *

Ray followed Macy home from Buck’s. He could see her dark outline in the car when they drove under a streetlight, her right arm up the whole time, talking on her phone. She honked twice when she got to her driveway and pulled in. Their porch light snapped on and the moths gathered. Macy ran onto the porch and Ray could see Neil, in just his underwear, reaching out for her with both arms.

Ray turned left instead of right and parked in front of Randeane’s. From the car, he saw the white edge of her chaise. He saw just the green tips of her slippered feet. He honked twice and drove home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My editor, Kate Medina, continues to be not only my brave and erudite captain but a dear friend and wise counselor. My agent, Phyllis Wender, continues to be the standard by which literary agents should be measured; her warm intelligence and steadfastness are legendary.

I am grateful to both the MacDowell Colony and the Yaddo Foundation, as more than a few of these stories were written in those places.

I am blessed with my beloved family of readers, Alexander, Caitlin, and Sarah, all exceptionally literate, all straight talkers, all my favorite people. I am grateful to my friends Kay Ariel and Bob Bledsoe, as well, for their generous criticism and sturdy support and for much more than that. Richard McCann has continued to be my eleventh-hour hero, with timely, stringent, and compassionate criticism. I have also been immeasurably assisted by Jennifer Ferri, who has made my business hers, in the best possible way.

A CONVERSATION WITH AMY BLOOM

Random House Reader’s Circle:
In this collection of short stories, you tackle some new themes, notably love in the second half of life, and death. Why did you decide to go in this new direction? How do you see these stories fitting in with your earlier collections?

Amy Bloom:
I think that generally the subject chooses the writer, not the other way around. It seems natural, even inevitable, that as I get older certain issues and moments in life that might have been less central to me at thirty-five are now more present, and although a number of the stories in this collection are told from the point of view of younger protagonists, both of the quartets have to do with the passage of time. In the Lionel and Julia quartet, I was particularly interested in ending with a story that was largely focused on the point of view of people who were about to become the patriarchs and matriarchs of a family, having always been seen in these stories as “the kids.”

RHRC:
You are known for tackling love’s taboos, particularly when it comes to gender and sexuality. What are some of the taboos you explore in this collection?

AB:
The truth is I never think of any subject as taboo. And the things that I think of as truly taboo—pedophilia, sexual violence—I don’t usually write about. As Camus once said, we do not choose whom we love. To me, this seems to be not only the way it is in life but probably the way it should be. I am all for loving relationships in which the couple at the center are a match set in terms of height, weight, color, and socially approved orientation. But it doesn’t strike me as any better or more blessed or more heartwarming than when people who clearly are not a match set on the outside are so clearly meant to be together on the inside.

RHRC:
Tell us a little about your choice to write interlocking stories, as opposed to a novel or a single story?

AB:
Perhaps one of the more striking aspects of both quartets is that they don’t just cover long periods of time in the life of my characters, they were also actually written over long periods of time—years. One quartet took me seven years to finish and the other sixteen years. Linked short stories are a wonderful way for me to split the difference between the range and scope of a novel and the compression and pace of a short story.

RHRC:
The Lionel and Julia story “Sleepwalking” first appeared in your celebrated collection
Come to Me
. What was it like for you as a writer to revisit these characters in this collection? How did your understanding of the characters evolve over time?

AB:
Of course I wouldn’t have revisited them if I hadn’t felt they had more stories in them and I could begin to see them in new ways. Two aspects of the quartets that were most gratifying: first, that I think I have become a better writer and am more able to put the skills I have in the service of my characters; and second, as in life, time gives you the opportunity to see events differently and to understand the actors in ways that were not possible the first time around. For example, although I always felt a great deal of sympathy for Julia it was only in the last story that I could really feel both the loss that had shaped her life and her unwillingness to yield to that.

RHRC:
Children, stepchildren, and the love between a parent and a child play a central role in many of these stories. At many times in this collection, the love for a child is in conflict with romantic love. Why did you choose to write about how people balance different loves?

AB:
When is romantic love not in conflict with a child—if you have children? It is a wonderful, moving, heart-filling experience to sit with the man or woman you love and your beloved children and know that all are happy to be just where they are with each other and loving one another. This doesn’t happen very often. Somebody has taken somebody else’s sweater, somebody has driven the car without permission, somebody is making a terrible choice in a career or fiancé, or someone is ill, or the adults are putting a good face on misfortune for the sake of the beloved children, or the beloved children would rather be somewhere else.… Seems to me that family life is a long ride full of ups and downs, moments of sartori-like bliss, and moments when you feel like you’re in a second-rate sitcom.

RHRC:
In the William and Clare stories, you write about the love between two people, but their relationship ripples throughout the lives of their families. You seem to be exploring the way love touches people at their core and also at the more superficial but important edges. Why did you choose to move in this direction?

AB:
The ripple effect of love, of hate, of indifference, the consequences of one’s actions, are always of interest to me. In
Come to Me
, I wrote a story about a woman who chooses to go back to her husband rather than go off with her lover, not because she couldn’t bear to hurt her husband and her children but because she felt she would be an inadequate and unhappy stepmother, and, in the end, a bad wife to a second husband. In the William and Clare stories, part of what I was writing about is that in midlife, in the face of an unexpected and powerful love, one has a lot to lose. Inevitably, there is loss, some of which people recover from and some of which they don’t—another theme of mine.

RHRC:
You are known for your titles, and the stories in this collection are no exception. Tell us a little about how you chose these titles.

AB:
“Where the God of Love Hangs Out” is a little unusual for me because of the colloquial phrase “hangs out.” I ended up choosing that in part because it reflected the setting of that particular story, which is a dive in a dying town. My hope for every title is that it actually adds something to the story. It doesn’t summarize it and it doesn’t preview it, it gives something to the story that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

RHRC:
Tell us a little about your writing process. Also, what writing projects are you currently pursuing?

AB:
My writing process such as it is consists of a lot of noodling, procrastinating, dawdling, and avoiding. I usually write fiction in the afternoon. I am currently at work on a couple of television projects—one about family, one about cops—and another novel, which is about sisters, parents, psychics, orphanages, and vaudeville.

READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why do you think Bloom chose to tell the stories of Lionel and Julia and William and Clare through a collection of interlocking stories? Does this device allow Bloom to reveal something that a single story or the novel form would not? Can you read the stories individually, or must they be read only as a collection?

2. What do the titles of these stories tell us about what is going on below the surface? For example, what does “The Old Impossible” suggest about William and Clare’s love? Or “Night Vision” about Lionel and Julia’s relationship?

3. In these stories, Bloom explores love in many forms—old friendships, marriage, parenthood. What are some of the other types of love relationships found in these stories? Which ones are unexpected? Which are forbidden or secret?

4. Which characters transgress the boundaries of their relationships with other characters? How do these transgressions change the nature of the relationship? Which actions damage a relationship forever? Which relationships cannot be repaired? What price do they pay for their transgressions?

5. Many of Bloom’s characters play multiple roles—mother, sister, daughter, wife, lover. Do these roles, such as husband or wife, provide safety? If so, what happens when these labels are undermined? Explore the many roles assumed by William and Clare at the beginning of their relationship—not only with each other but also with the other characters. How do these roles change by the end of “Compassion and Mercy”?

6. Does love change over time? What is the nature of love in the second half of life? How does love toward the end change our understanding of its beginning? In “Between Here and Here,” the daughter undergoes a transformation in her understanding of her father as he ages. How do you understand his change in behavior and her feelings toward him? How do Lionel’s feelings about Julia evolve as she ages?

7. Many love stories explore only the mysteries and wonders of love, but Bloom goes further and often writes about love’s darker side. What are some of the casualties of love in these stories? What happens when love ends, either by choice or, which it always does, death?