Renee sat on the large white sofa in the middle of her large white living room and stared at her husband’s latest acquisition, a bright paint-splattered explosion by a Florida artist named Clarence Maesele. Abstract illusionism, Philip had called it, and Renee thought that as good a description as any. She liked the painting. It was colorful and dynamic and it moved. Unlike much of the artwork that lined the walls of Philip’s apartment (when had she started referring to it, even in her own mind, as Philip’s apartment?), consisting of static, flat lines of color, Maesele’s painting was three-dimensional, its multitude of colors leaping off the canvas in bold, erratic layers. Normally, just looking at the painting made her happy. When Philip had first brought it home a few months before, and announced that he had bought it that afternoon (when had he stopped consulting her about major purchases? had he ever consulted her?), Renee had been excited and glad. (And a touch anxious. Come on, Renee, admit it. He didn’t even stop to ask your opinion, whether you thought he’d paid too much, gotten a steal, where you thought he should hang it, whether or not you even liked it.) She had run to get him a pencil and a ruler so that he could measure and mark the spot where he would hammer in the nail, then she had helped him hang the large painting, mindful not to scratch the wall. Then she had sat back and studied the painting, letting him tell her all about it, formulating a few observations of her own but keeping them to herself, afraid to risk his censure or ridicule. Philip was the authority on art. There was a time when she knew a little something about it, but lately, she had let that knowledge slide. Maybe she had let her practice overtake her life. Maybe she had lost sight of her priorities.
Renee turned away from the painting. While it normally made her happy, tonight it made her nervous, even a touch sad. It jumped out at her, pointing colorfully accusing fingers in her direction, although she had lost sight of what exactly she was being accused of. She turned toward Philip, who stood in the middle of the room, trying to concentrate on his words, not wishing to be accused of not listening.
“I’m sorry, Philip,” she said, trying to remember what she should be sorry for, deciding that it didn’t matter. She didn’t care.
“You’re interrupting.”
“I’m sorry.”
Interrupting again. Sorry again.
What were they arguing about this time? When had all these arguments started?
There had been a time when they didn’t fight, when his words had been soothing and soft and reassuring and loving, not harsh and nasty and mean and relentless, God, so relentless. I’m the one who’s supposed to be so good with words, she thought. I’m the legal eagle, the courtroom wizard. I’m the one with the bagful of lawyer’s tricks. Isn’t that what he tells me? About my ability to twist everything he says? Face it, Renee, you thrive on confrontations. Isn’t that what he’s always saying? That I’m not happy unless I’m making someone else miserable?
And yet there had been a time, in the beginning, when they didn’t fight.
“Tell me everything about your day,” he had said when they were making love one night early in their courtship. “Every detail. I want to know everything.”
“I took some bastard into court,” she told him, feeling his mouth on her neck, his hands at her breasts.
“Did he have any balls when he walked out?”
“Oh, I let him keep those.” She laughed. “I just took his money.”
“I love what you do,” he had said, sitting her on top of him, maneuvering himself inside her.
“You do? Why?”
“It’s very sexy.”
“Sexy?” She laughed again, feeling him thrust deep within her. “Why? How is it sexy?”
“It just is.”
When had it stopped being sexy? When had her work stopped turning him on and started turning him off?
“You should have seen me in court today, Philip. If I do say so myself, I was fucking brilliant.”
“Do you have to use profanity?”
“What?”
“Do you have to swear? Can’t you just be brilliant without having to be fucking brilliant?”
“I’m sorry. I was just crowing a bit, I guess.”
“All right, a lot. I know. But, Philip, I nailed that sucker. He was up there on that stand, lying his fool head off. ‘I never laid a hand on her,’ he was saying. ‘I never touched her.’ And I’m sitting there with a fistful of sworn affidavits from relatives and neighbors who saw him beat his wife on numerous occasions. ‘I have no assets,’ he whines, and I know all the details of this little trust fund that he uses to keep his money out of his name but inside his pockets. And this bastard, I’m sorry, this schnook has the nerve to sit there on the stand, under oath, the man is under oath, and he swears that he’s never hit his wife and that he’s on the verge of bankruptcy. And he’s good. The man is good. Very convincing. He should consider acting as a career. And do you know when I knew I had him nailed? I asked him a seemingly innocuous question about how his trust fund was set up and administered, and he hesitated. Just for a second, it was only a second, but I saw this look cross his eyes, and I knew that he was going to lie, that all I had to do was push him a little and he’d fall straight into hell.”
“So, you pushed.”
“I sure did.”
“And you’re elated because you tricked some poor schnook, as you call him, into lying …”
“I didn’t trick him.”
“You waited for the look and then you pushed. That’s what you said.”
“Yes, but …”
“And the poor schnook didn’t have a chance. You nailed him.”
“Damn right.”
He smiled, indulgently, “I find it interesting that you can be so sure you’re right. As a psychiatrist, I’ve learned that things are rarely as one-sided as you make them seem.”
“I’m being paid to represent my client …”
“The truth be damned?”
“The truth will out.”
He turned away. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
But she hadn’t had an answer then, and she didn’t have one now. Just a lot of nagging questions. Why did every discussion turn into a disagreement? Why did everything she do feel wrong, as if, when presented with two alternatives, she automatically chose the wrong one? What had happened to their relationship? When had the balance of power shifted so dramatically in his direction?
In the beginning, he’d been proud of her work, proud of the way she looked. But she’d put on so much weight in the last few years, he couldn’t help but be frustrated by her appearance. Perhaps it came out as criticism of her work instead. But even as these thoughts were forming, something inside Renee said it wasn’t so, that his barbed critiques had started before she took to eating Snickers bars for breakfast and 3 Musketeers for lunch.
Their problem had evolved slowly, sneaking up on them like a giant wave, building in power as it grew, pushing them out above their heads, knocking them down. Overwhelming them. Or at least her. Philip didn’t seem too overwhelmed. He was still standing. He looked better all the time.
No doubt about it, she had the handsomest man in Florida on her arm and in her bed. He was bright and beautiful and successful, and out of all the women he could have had, he had chosen her. He loved her, and for a time, he loved her success. And then the balance had shifted. Subtly at first, then more forcefully. His praise became less lavish, then guarded, then laced with venom. Finally the venom had taken the place of the praise altogether. Why? What had she done?
Renee sat in the all-white living room and watched her husband pace back and forth in front of the large window overlooking the dark ocean below. She wanted to stop him, throw her arms around him, and tell him that whatever she had said or done, whatever he was so upset about, she was sorry, she would take it back. Let’s go into the bedroom, she wanted to say, and make love the way we used to, but she said nothing because she was afraid of interrupting him.
Interrupting again. Sorry again.
The light beside her illuminated her face, and Renee became aware of her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window. She saw her normally straight posture perverted, her body hunched forward, her knees twisted in on one another, her face half hidden by her hands.
In the beginning, it was so good, the reflection in the glass explained, talking to Renee as if they were two distinct people.
Explain further, said the lawyer on the sofa.
We made love all the time, responded the witness clearly from her glass booth. He was always so gentle. Not like now. I thought everything he did was wonderful. Of course, I’d just about given up on finding a husband.
Come on, the lawyer on the sofa broke in impatiently, rearranging her knees, balancing her elbows on her thighs. You’re a product of the liberated generation. Women can do anything. We don’t need a man to define us. We don’t need a man to make us happy. You have a brain!
Yes, but I’m not pretty. And brains or not, pretty was all I ever really wanted to be.
There’s nothing wrong with the way you look.
Maybe not, but I’d grown up believing that Kathryn was the pretty one in the family, that I’d always have to work harder for what would come naturally to her, that Kathryn had inherited our mother’s eyes and cheekbones. And she had. No question, Kathryn was the pretty one. And looks were what counted when it came to getting a husband, according to my mother, who firmly believed it. Looks, not brains. Brains’ll only get you into trouble, she used to say. None of this liberated nonsense for her. And me, the smart one, the “fem-libber,” as my father calls me, I bought it all. No matter what fancy words I used, what modern-day rhetoric I spouted, it still came down to two things: I was nothing without a man, and I would never get a man because I was too smart and too plain.
But somehow you did it, the lawyer on the sofa reminded her reflection. You got Philip to love you, and you got him to marry you. What did I get? A law degree? Let me tell you, law degrees make lousy lovers. Shall I tell you about my graduation from law school? The one that everyone but Kathryn was too busy to attend?
You can’t blame them, her reflection admonished with just a hint of sarcasm. It was in New York. It was too far to come, too expensive a trip. Dad was busy with his practice; Mom couldn’t leave him all alone.
Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming them. I’ve learned to accept my parents for what they are.
Is that why you rarely see them?
We have nothing in common.
They’re your parents.
They’re cold people who never should have had children. God only knows why they did except that everybody else in those days was having them. So they had Kathryn and then they had me, and then they left us with a succession of housekeepers until we were old enough to basically raise ourselves. I accept all of that. It happened. It’s over. Besides, how badly did things turn out? I’m a lawyer, aren’t I? I never would have gone to law school except for my father. I thought it might make him proud of me. I wanted him to be so proud of me he could burst. I stood third! Third in the entire graduating year. At Columbia! But he couldn’t take the time to come to my graduation. Well, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain. So I came back and got a job with the best law firm in Delray. I could have gone to New York. I’ve always wanted to live in New York. I had a wonderful offer. But I came back home instead.
And I met Philip, and I married him, the voice in the glass took over. The man of my dreams. Except that the dream is becoming a nightmare. And I don’t understand why. I married the most wonderful man in the world. We were on our way to living happily ever after. And then things changed. At first, I told myself: Don’t be silly. Who’s happy one hundred percent of the time? What’s wrong with being happy eighty percent, or even sixty? And then, one day I woke up to find the percentages were reversed. Our lovemaking changed. We always seemed to be fighting. There were other women. And the bright, happy woman he married had turned into an insecure, overweight, jealous combination of everything I’ve always despised. Look at me. I hate what’s happened to me. But I still don’t understand how it happened. And I think: Renee, what’s the matter with you? You might not have the looks, but you have the brains. What the hell happened to your life? And then I look at Philip, and I remember what my mother told me. She said I’d have to work hard to keep him, that’s what she said, and I feel I’m losing him, so I know I’m not working hard enough. I know that I’m to blame for what’s happened. I’m not good enough. I’m not understanding enough. I’m too smart for my own good. I’m too selfish. I’m too preoccupied. I’m too concerned with winning. I always have to be right. I don’t know how to give. I’m always saying things to upset him, to make him feel guilty, when I’m the one who should feel guilty.
You are guilty, said the lawyer on the sofa, now the judge and jury as well. Guilty as charged.
Philip suddenly positioned himself between Renee and her reflection.
“Did you hear a word I said?” he was demanding.
“I’m sorry, I …”
“You think that by saying you’re sorry that makes everything all right?”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“You’re the one who started this whole thing, and then you think that a simple apology is going to set things right again.”
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me that we choose our emotions?” she asked, immediately wishing she hadn’t. “You can choose to be upset or you can choose to accept my apology,” she continued, thinking: What the hell, I might as well go all the way. Philip shifted his position, resumed his angry pacing.
“You have a very convenient memory. Tell me, why is it you’re always able to quote me when it suits your purposes?”
“Can’t we just drop it?” Renee pleaded, the beginnings of the argument crowding back into her brain.
“I come home from work after one hell of a day to be accused of deliberately missing dinner with you for sex with a client. And I’m not supposed to get upset?”
“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”
“No? What did you say exactly?”
“I don’t remember exactly.” Renee tried to look past him to her reflection, as if the figure in the window might be able to come up with a better response, but Philip was in her way. She thought of Kathryn and Debbie, and hoped they were both sound asleep. “I thought I asked you where you’d been all night. It’s almost eleven o’clock. We were supposed to have dinner with Mike Drake and his wife at seven. I was concerned when you didn’t show up.”
“I’ve already explained that I got tied up with a patient.”
“I called your office at five o’clock and again at six, six-thirty, seven, and every half hour after that. I called before I left my office and when I got to the restaurant. I called between courses, and again after coffee.”
“And you think that’s the sign of a healthy woman? Of a healthy marriage?”
Oh, please, don’t call the marriage into question, Renee thought. Instead, she kept her voice steady and said, “It’s the sign of a concerned wife. Of a wife whose husband was supposed to meet her for dinner at seven o’clock and never showed up. I was afraid that something might have happened to you, that maybe you’d been in an accident …”
“That I’d driven off a cliff?” he asked, sarcastically. “I think you were afraid I was with someone.”
“Were you?”
“Yes. I’ve already told you that.”
“A patient.”
“Yes. A suicidal patient.”
“A woman?”
“They usually are.”
Renee was almost too upset to be angered by the insensitivity of his remark, but not quite. Despite her good intentions, she found her voice rising in anger. Don’t bite, she tried to say. When you rise to the bait, you always lose. “Philip, that dinner was important to me. We’ve already missed a number of important dinners with my partners and Mike Drake has done a lot over the years to help build up my practice. You knew how important it was to me …”
“More important than my patient’s life?”
“No, of course not more important than someone’s life.” Renee tried to peer past him to the woman who would be reflected in the glass (surely she would be calm), but Philip remained stubbornly in her path. “But you could have at least called me, warned me that you might be late, that you might not show up …”
“What was I supposed to say? ‘Excuse me, lady, please don’t jump until I get back—I have to call my wife and tell her that I might be late for dinner’? How about ‘Look, lady, if you’re going to jump, would you do it soon because my wife has an important dinner engagement tonight and she doesn’t want me to be late’? How about either of those?”
Renee knew she should stop now, not allow herself to be sucked in further, and she determined not to answer, so she was surprised to hear a voice (my God, her voice! idiot!) breaking into the stillness. “If it were the first time,” the voice started, the sound of tears not far off. “But, Philip, it seems that whenever we have somewhere to go that relates to me, we never make it.”
“I’m a doctor, Renee. I can’t always predict my timetable.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with your schedule when the function relates to you.”
“Are you saying that I deliberately missed dinner tonight?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That it’s not the first time.”
“No, and it probably won’t be the last. Jesus, Renee, I’m talking about a patient’s life, and you’re upset because I missed dinner. Can you really be so selfish? What’s happened to you?”
“I just think that …”
“You don’t think, Renee. That’s your problem. You’re worried about your sister or you’re angry at Debbie for some unknown reason, or you’re worried about your practice or impressing your partners, so you take it out on me. As usual. You don’t care how the things you say might upset me. My feelings aren’t important to you.”
“That’s not true. Your feelings are everything to me.” Renee brought her hand to her head. She was becoming dizzy. Was there any truth to what he was saying? She didn’t know anymore.
He was suddenly sitting on the cushion next to her, his hands touching hers, his voice soft and conciliatory. “You’ve changed, Renee,” he was telling her. “You take on too much. You can’t handle it all. Look at you. You’re exhausted. You look like hell.” He said all this kindly, as if he were thinking only of her own good. “You have no compassion,” he was telling her compassionately. “What happened to the girl I married?”
Renee felt a sharp stab to her chest. Was he threatening to leave her? Was he saying that unless she shaped up, he would ship out?
“You’ve been fighting in the dirt for too long,” he continued, as she struggled through her panic to pay attention. “When you fight in the dirt long enough, you can’t help but get dirty. You’re too good at what you do, Renee. You’re not happy unless you’re in an adversarial position. You relish discord. I strive for harmony. I don’t know. Maybe we’ve just been fooling ourselves.”
Renee snapped back to attention, her whole body alert. “What are you saying?”
He stared into her eyes and his eyes were alive and clear despite his proclaimed fatigue. “I love you, Renee,” he said slowly, “but I don’t know if I can live with what I see happening to you.”
There was a long pause, during which Renee tried to think of what she could say to make things right again. Tell me, she thought. I’ll say it. I’ll say whatever you want. Just don’t leave me. I’m nothing without you. You’re my life. There is no life without you.
“I love you, Philip,” she whispered as he took her head in his hands and began kissing the sides of her hair. She looked awful, she knew. He had told her so. How could he bear to kiss her? How could he bear to look at her?
He bent his head toward hers, kissing the sides of her lips, licking at her tears with his tongue. “You have to decide what your priorities are,” she heard him say just before his mouth covered hers.
From out of the corner of her eye, Renee caught sight of Philip’s image in the window as he bent over to kiss her. The thought crossed her mind that he looked like a Mafia chieftain bestowing the kiss of death on a doomed member of the clan. Renee felt his lips pressing down tightly on hers, and banished the unpleasant observation from her mind.