Gerald was sitting at the table in the kitchen, grudgingly drinking his breakfast glass of milk. His pediatrician had told Jane that many children dislike milk. Go to the supermarket, he’d advised her, and look at all the products designed to disguise the buttery flavor of milk and its white viscosity. Sure enough, there were shelves of the stuff—powders and syrups and granules. So why did she take Gerald’s feeling of revulsion toward milk so personally, as if it were a subconscious rejection of her? She insisted he drink a glass of milk each morning for his bones and his teeth, but the real reason she made sure he choked it all down was that she wanted this daily reassurance of his acceptance.
Thomas was driving Gerald to school in half an hour, and he still hadn’t returned from his morning jog. It worried her that he was being so consistent about jogging. As far as she could tell, he’d missed only two days in the past two weeks, and there hadn’t been much improvement in the weather. She had managed to talk him into going out in the mornings when it was cool, although he still ended his runs pink and sweating.
“Did you finish your milk, sweetie?”
“Lyuuuck!” He shuddered, and handed her his empty glass.
She set a plate of toast in front of him and sat down at the table with her coffee. Gerald’s hair was beginning to grow in, which made him look less like a convict, but it was at that awkward middle stage of growth: spiky bristles sticking out all over. “What are you doing in school today?” she asked.
“Something stupid and babyish probably.”
Oh, Gerald, she wanted to tell him, I hope you don’t talk like that in front of your classmates. He had only one friend in school that she knew of, an eight-year-old girl named after the city in which her parents had met: Plattsburgh. He sometimes went to her house to give her cooking lessons. Last week, her mother had called Jane to complain that Gerald was condescending to Plattsburgh and creating “self-esteem issues.” As if her name wasn’t a guarantee of that. If only she knew how to talk about any of this without hurting his feelings. He took a bite of his toast, chewed for a few seconds, and then let his mouth drop open. A lump of masticated bread plopped onto his plate.
“Gerald! What was that?”
He held up his toast. “What’s this?”
He was making it sound as if she’d just tried to poison him, an effective tone to take since her conscience wasn’t clear. “It’s your toast, my dear, what do you think?”
“What’s on it?”
“Listen, mister, we ran out of butter and I haven’t had a chance to go shopping, so I used margarine. Which happens to be good for you.” That was unlikely, seeing as everything, including breathing, was unhealthy.
“I hate it! You know I hate it!”
“Gerald, sweetie, I will go shopping today and I will get you some butter. Sweet, unsalted, not in quarters but in a one-pound block, just the way you like it. All right?”
“That doesn’t do me much good this morning.”
Where had he learned to talk like this? What gremlin crawled up the stairs to his third-floor “apartment” each night and gave tutorials in sarcasm and bullying? If only she had the option of blaming it all on TV, life would be easier. But Gerald had almost no interest in television, aside from the occasional cooking show. And what was the right thing to do now? Punish him? Run down to the store on the corner and buy some butter? Get to work at the churn? She picked up his plate and put it into the sink, ran water over it and turned on the disposal. “I can offer you cereal, banana, or peanut butter sandwich.”
“Lyuck, lyuck, lyuuuuck.”
Thomas walked in the back door, mopping his face with his T-shirt.
“Morning, boys and girls. What’s the racket in here?”
Jane watched as Gerald looked from one parent to the other, made a mental calculation of some kind, and said, “Nothing. I wasn’t hungry, that’s all.”
It was a clear-cut case of divide and conquer, but she wasn’t going to enter into the fray by further explanation. It was better to allow herself the luxury of believing it just didn’t matter.
“Is that so?” Thomas asked. “Well, maybe if we have time, and you decide you are hungry, we can stop on the way to school and pick you up a bagel. How does that sound?”
Gerald shrugged. “I’d prefer a muffin.”
Thomas chugged down a big glass of water. “We’ll see about that,” he said, mild but in control. His skin looked firmer, and that girdle of fat that clung to his waist was definitely shrinking. Perhaps he’d changed his diet as well, in subtle ways she wouldn’t necessarily notice—smaller portions, skipping lunches. People like Thomas, thinkers who ordinarily didn’t register on exercise as a part of daily life, didn’t take up jogging all of a sudden unless something was troubling them, unless they felt they needed to spruce themselves up.
“How come you’re so wet?” Gerald asked.
“I’ve been running in the heat. And when you get hot, your body perspires, and the water on your skin evaporates and cools you down.”
“Do you like running?”
Thomas cocked his head. “Do I like it? You know, I hadn’t thought of it in that way. I was viewing it more as a daily trip to the dentist. Although now that you mention it, I am beginning to enjoy it. It gives me more patience. It’s helped me put some things in perspective.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Little things,” he said. “I hope they’re little. Now you better get ready or we’ll have to skip the muffin.”
Little things. He could be talking about students, the ever-grating English Department, a paper he was trying to finish on The Confidence-Man. And yet the weary tone of his voice suggested it was something more personal. She owed it to him to tell him that she was seeing Dr. Berman again. It was a simple, matter-of-fact way to start opening up to her husband. She could even report on what she was discussing with Berman, since she hadn’t opened up to the good doctor very much.
Gerald turned as he was leaving the kitchen. “Why do we have to go to New Hampshire? I hate New Hampshire.”
Thomas knelt on the floor in front of him and said, “We’ve been asked by some very nice people, and it would be rude to say no, and there’s a beautiful lake, and even though you don’t realize it yet, you’re going to have a good time.”
“I hate water.”
Thomas chuckled and gave him a gentle nudge toward the hallway. When they could hear him stomping up the stairs, he grabbed a banana and said, “I have to run. I have to take Sarah for her checkup later this morning. What do you have on today?”
“Too much to remember.” He came and kissed her on the forehead, and as he was leaving, she said, “Thomas, I wish you hadn’t told Caroline we’d go to the lake.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
His back was to her, but there was something unsettling in the way he’d asked, almost as if he was testing her, or possibly trying to trip her up. From the moment they’d met, she’d been careful never to mention Dale in ways that would make Thomas think she had any good feelings for him lingering on the edges of her subconscious. It wasn’t exactly a struggle, since she wasn’t aware of any lingering good feelings.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It might be awkward.”
“There’ll be lots of family and friends floating around. I think it will be fine. It will be good for Gerald.”
“He hates New Hampshire.”
“He’s never been, Jody. By the way, I was on the deck and overheard some of the toast discussion. Don’t take it all so seriously. He’s only six.”
When she got out of her appointment with Dr. Berman, she felt worse than she’d felt in weeks. What she’d wanted to discuss with him was her inability to tell Thomas she was back in therapy, but the more she thought about it and the harder she tried to find a way to bring it up, the more impossible it seemed. It was the kind of thing she should have mentioned immediately, in the first or second session; telling it now, after months of twice-weekly meetings, would probably make Berman think she was acting out or resisting treatment. She gave up the idea and rambled on in a monotone about how abandoned she’d felt when her parents had died. That was always good to kill time, and it was the kind of topic that seemed to please Berman. It was probably useful, in a therapeutic sense, even though she was almost certain she’d worked through all that material years ago. And yet, driving back to her office, she felt so frustrated, she called Desmond from her cell phone and asked him if he’d like to meet her later in the day for coffee. He’d love to, he told her. He said it in such a heartfelt, relieved voice, it was obvious he was lonely, sitting around that grim room reading student papers and listening to Pauline Anderton. She felt such a flush of sympathy for him, she decided to go all out and suggested they meet at the Ritz.
It was late afternoon when she walked into the golden lounge on the second floor of the hotel. She scanned the room and realized that she was probably underdressed, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She’d been to tea at the Ritz one other time and had left wondering if all the ladies in pearls and boiled wool jackets weren’t paid actors, hired to sit politely nibbling on their sandwiches and straining their tea. Desmond was sitting at a table in the corner, smoothing down the pink tablecloth with his hand. He stood and grinned when he spotted her, but as she was making her way toward him, she saw an expectant look on his face, his eyes a little more wide open than usual, something hopeful in the grin. She’d made a mistake in suggesting this place. Why invite someone to the Ritz unless you had some good news to announce, something to celebrate? Why not meet at any boring coffeehouse unless you were going to report that the station had okayed your proposal and was coming up with the money?
“You’re looking pretty lovely,” he said. He held out a chair for her.
“Too bad. I was hoping I was underdressed.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. You look perfect.”
You could always count on a gay man to flatter you. And when one did, she usually ended up feeling only halfway complimented. The myth about their superior taste made no sense to her, but experience had taught her it was frequently true. You couldn’t discount the praise, but given a moment to think it over, she invariably felt a sputter of disappointment. It was like drinking nonalcoholic beer—tastes like the real thing, but where’s the buzz? He was wearing a tie and a sports jacket, which probably meant he’d called ahead to find out if there was a dress code. He looked handsome in a slightly disheveled way, and she was so grateful for his flattery—or half compliment or whatever—she practically delivered a panegyric on his outfit.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, “but I appreciate it.”
The room was filled with proper Boston ladies, the same cast or identical stand-ins she’d seen here last time, and a few young couples, one nestled together on a love seat feeding each other cookies. Desmond nodded toward a corner where a woman dressed in pale purple was playing a harp. “We should either be much older or in love with each other.”
“Let’s just be voyeurs,” she said. “It always sounds to me as if harpists are playing Debussy. Which is odd because I have no idea what Debussy sounds like.”
“Not like this. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s doing a medley of Rodgers and Hart.”
She wasn’t about to admit she couldn’t name a single song she was absolutely certain had been written by that particular team. Basically, she lumped the whole of the American songbook under the “show tunes” umbrella. “Thomas would know the composer immediately, along with the date it was written and who first recorded it. He’s full of information.” She thought this over for a moment. “And wisdom, too.”
“I had an interesting conversation with him this morning,” Desmond said. “I was telling him I thought I needed a bit more time to solve my problems with the biography and he quoted something from Emily Dickinson. ‘Time is a test of trouble, not a remedy.’ I’m not sure I agree, but it made me realize I’ve been counting on time to fill in the gaps on the book. I have to be more aggressive in sorting it out.”
There was something grandiose about the way Thomas pulled quotations out of thin air, like a magician yanking a quarter from behind someone’s ear, knowing very well that it’s not the quarter or the quotation you’re supposed to applaud, but the magician’s ability to produce it. And yet, you could sometimes get the inside track on what was going through his mind if you listened to what he was reciting. “Time is a test of trouble.” What trouble had he been thinking about, other than Desmond’s? This morning he’d made that vague comment about jogging giving him more patience. Perhaps he was waiting out her season of discontent, hoping it wasn’t strong enough to survive more than a few months. Exactly what she was hoping.
The waiter came around bearing triple-tiered trays with delicate sandwiches and scones dotted with currants and little cakes coated in dense frosting. She wasn’t hungry, and she had no intention of eating, so she chose the three cakes that looked the most caloric. Leaving something that fattening on the plate would make her feel especially virtuous.
“You and Thomas are an interesting couple,” Desmond said. He was selecting sandwiches from the tray, thin, crustless items that cried out to be eaten in an affected way, pinkie in the air. She wondered how he’d manage with those.
“Interesting how?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, Thomas is a bit academic. He’s very studied and careful.” Dull seemed to be the word he was trying to avoid. “And you’re much more spontaneous.”
“Not always,” she said. Even so, she appreciated hearing it. She wanted to think of herself as spontaneous and free-spirited, despite the fact that she spent vast amounts of time attempting to be organized and disciplined.
“And yet you seem to work together very well as a couple.”
She strained her tea into her cup and dropped in a couple of cubes of sugar. (She’d been hoping for coffee, but they probably would have sneered at her if she’d dared to ask for it.) She liked the picture Desmond had of their marriage—two distinctly different people with different tastes and personalities who still functioned well as a couple. That was the way she hoped people saw her marriage to Thomas. It was the way she’d seen it for the first couple of years they were together, before she felt swamped by petty annoyances, before Gerald became quite so verbal. “Thank you for saying that,” she said. “Sometimes I think about the marriage going through regular, predictable cycles, like the weather. Or like a washing machine. Some are smooth and quiet, some noisy, but in the end, they all work together and eventually get the clothes clean.”
“What cycle are you in now?”
The cakes were staring up at her, daring her to take a bite. She sliced off such a thin sliver of the chocolate cake, it crumpled into a heap on the plate, and she scooped it up with a spoon. “Probably the WASH cycle. Warm Affection mixed with Subtle Hostility. It’s a low-key mode. What about you and Russell?”
He pondered this for a moment. “The SPIN cycle: Separation Producing Increased Neediness. A lot of chugging and rattling. I was hoping it would be closer to RINSE—Recaptured Independence . . . Negating Symbiotic . . .”
“Entanglement?”
“Exactly.” He picked up one of the cucumber sandwiches and, making what looked like a noble attempt at being not too dainty, popped the whole thing into his mouth. “I miscalculated, it seems. But I guess I’m talking about my own feelings, not the cycle of the relationship.”
“What about Russell’s feelings?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out this weekend.”
“It’s trouble if you’re not both on the same cycle. The unbalanced light goes on and everything grinds to a halt. My brother and Joyce come to mind.”
He seemed to perk up at the mention of Brian, which probably meant he’d been charmed by his looks—good looks, if she could believe everyone’s opinion except her own. “Another interesting marriage,” he said.
“That’s one way of describing it. He’s been stuck in the raging narcissist cycle for years. I was married to one of those once.”
“Dale?”
She nodded. She looked down at her plate, astonished to realize she’d finished every last crumb of the chocolate cake. She’d been so intent on not eating it, she hadn’t even tasted it. “Are you worried that Russell isn’t missing you enough?”
“Probably. It’s what I deserve, so . . .”
“But people never get what they deserve, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. Anyway, all you have to do is wait for the happy-days-are-here-again cycle.”
She liked herself as he seemed to see her—strong, capable, independent. Not part of the undifferentiated mass of Janethomasgerald as she’d feared, but part of a loving, healthy family. Which wasn’t so far from the truth. She liked his belief in her, his faith that she could help see him through whatever block he was having with this book. She wanted to live up to his image of her.
Later, as they were making their way down the staircase to the lobby, he said to her, hesitantly, “So, Jane, was there a reason you wanted to get together? Something you wanted to tell me?”
She’d wanted forty-five minutes of companionship, wanted to be around someone with whom she had a relationship uncomplicated by fabrications and omissions. Someone who approved of her, even if, in truth, he didn’t know her all that well. She stopped on the staircase and let him get a few steps ahead of her. “Can you believe I almost forgot?” she said. “We’re going to get the money! I haven’t had the official word, but I’ve had the unofficial official word we’re getting a green light. And not only that, it seems nearly certain we’ll be getting more than the ten grand I thought we’d end up getting.”
He bounded up the stairs and put his arms around her. “You’re brilliant, Jane.”
This was what she’d come for, and standing on the stairs with the harpist above plucking out something silvery and melancholy—Debussy? The Beatles?—she believed him for almost a full minute.