SOMETIMES AFTER DRESSING FOR WORK, MARLA WOULD STAND at the kitchen sink with the last of her coffee and feel as if her small apartment and everything in it were props for a movie she wasn’t even in, as if she were working for all this for somebody else. She was twenty-nine years old and had been a teller at Providential Bank for eight years. She owned a Honda two-door, and her bedroom closet was full of large tasteful outfits with shoes to match. In her carpeted living room was a high-definition TV and DVD player enclosed in an oak cabinet with glass doors, the bottom shelves filled with workout discs she never used beneath musicals from the forties she watched once or twice a month. Alone again on a Saturday night, she’d curl up on the couch with a bowl of buttered popcorn and watch two movies back to back. She’d listen to the orchestra’s manly horns and womanly strings and watch men who could sing and dance their leading ladies into a swoon under the stars over a glittering sea, and Marla would pull her cat Edna into her lap and stroke her head till she purred, and she’d try to pretend she wasn’t miserable, even with all she had.
On Thursday nights she’d go out with her friends from the bank, usually to Pedro Diego’s downtown because they had nine kinds of margaritas and they kept the place lit up in an aquamarine light. It made the tiled cocktail tables, the huge cacti in the corners, and the straw sombreros hanging on the wall all seem to be in an underwater tequila dream, and when she was a little drunk she always felt prettier, or maybe just more hopeful, or reckless, which occurred to her once might be the same thing. She’d borrow one or two cigarettes from Lisa’s pack of Marlboros and she’d suck her peach margarita through the straw, laugh at Nancy’s nasty jokes, listen to Nancy bitch about their supervisor, Dorothy, who was fifty-six years old and seemed to have married the bank twenty-five years earlier. But there was a sadness in Dorothy’s eyes, even when she was briskly handing you a memo making your job more tedious. If you looked past the hard lines of her face, her short, unstylish hair, you could see how dark and sad her eyes really were. Not pissed off the way the other girls saw her, but melancholy. Lonely, Marla was sure.
Nancy’s husband Carl was a computer salesman with a square, handsome face, blue eyes with nothing behind them, and the beginnings of a gut he didn’t bother working off anymore. He and Nancy had two teenage sons and lived in a five-bedroom on Whittier Lake north of town. Three or four times a year they would host a party for their favorite coworkers from his job and hers, and their place would be full of casually dressed husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, all sipping drinks, chatting and laughing and munching cheese sticks and buttery stuffed mushrooms, appetizers Marla was careful not to touch. Instead, she’d grab a carrot to chew on while she sipped from a glass of white wine. Soon many of the women would get around to talking about their young children, and something seemed to come into the air between them that wasn’t there just a few moments before; the light in their eyes became more genuine somehow, and they nodded their heads not out of habit or good manners, but because they really did know what the other was talking about. The air would be heavy with it. And often it left Marla feeling so excluded she’d refill her wineglass and walk out onto the deck.
She’d lean against the railing and look at the lawn sloping down to the stands of pines and birches at the water’s edge. There was a dock there and a boathouse Carl had built himself a few years earlier. Not long after he’d driven the last nail, Nancy had confessed to the girls at Pedro’s that she and her husband made love there while the boys slept up in the house.
“We just had to,” she’d said, then shook her head and laughed. “But I got two splinters in my butt and I made Carl pull them out with his teeth!”
Nancy had a small, lined face that was pretty even when she wore her glasses, and sometimes when she laughed they’d slip halfway down her nose, which made Lisa and Cheryl laugh even harder at this picture of Carl’s face buried in their friend’s rear. Marla had laughed too, though she didn’t think it was that funny; it was like being careless with a precious gift, talking that way—not about the boathouse or the marriage itself, but the lovemaking, what men and women who loved each other did when they were alone.
“You shouldn’t joke, Nancy.”
“Oh, lighten up, Marla,” Lisa said, coughing now, knocking a cigarette loose from her pack.
“Why shouldn’t I joke?” Nancy’s eyes were still bright and glistening with mischief.
“I don’t know—because it’s special, isn’t it?” Marla’s cheeks and throat felt hot and she wished she’d kept quiet. Her friends were giving her a look they seemed to give her more and more, their mouths smiling but their eyes still and careful. Cheryl, with her streaked hair and tiny waist she got from six mornings a week at the gym, nodded her head and said, “She’s right, Nancy; you’re a slut.”
“I didn’t say that.”
They’d all laughed, even Marla, but the rest of the night she felt that familiar drift away from her friends. She sipped her margarita and listened to them talk, and once again she began to feel sorry for herself; she was twenty-five years old at the time and still had never slept with a man—not just because she believed it was special, but because no boy or man had ever stopped to take much of an interest unless it was to be cruel; in middle school other kids teased her and called her Marla Marmalade, and in high school at parties she willed herself to go to, she was almost completely ignored. Once in a crowded house, a drunk boy had wedged her against the hall wall and pressed his hands into her breasts under her sweater. Junior year, a tall boy with thick glasses would sit with her at lunch sometimes and talk about how bad the food was or how “oblivious” the band teacher was to “reality.” But nothing ever happened, and Marla was never sure why he’d ever sat with her at all. For a while in her early twenties she would drink too much at parties and would sometimes end up with a man who drank too much too. There would be groping and fondling, and once she took a man into her mouth who gripped her hair like he wanted to yank it. But she never opened her legs, was never so drunk she completely lost that part of herself that still believed there was a man out there who would love her.
She started drinking more moderately and began to view her virginity as a gift she was keeping for herself to open with a man special enough to know it was a gift. She knew this was an outdated notion and sometimes wondered if she really believed it; if she were as attractive as her friends, would she think this way? And for a few years now, it had begun to feel less like a gift and more like a burden; she was turning into one of those rare women who had completely missed the train everyone else had gotten on. She began to be convinced something might be truly wrong with her, that she had a defect everyone could see but her.
Except for her weight, she did not consider herself all that unattractive; she had thick brown hair she never had to color, and it had natural waves in it her hairdresser said he’d kill for. Her eyes were small and set a little too deeply into her round face, but she had high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a symmetrical mouth full of fairly white teeth. Since high school she’d tried to lose the extra thirty-five pounds that seemed to gather mainly in her hips and thighs, but exercising felt to her like punishment for a crime she couldn’t remember having committed, and when she starved herself she felt as if she was living in a cruel and sadistic world and at three or four in the morning she’d be in her kitchen standing in the light of the refrigerator eating cheese or dipping French bread into a jar of mayonnaise. But still, she wasn’t that heavy, certainly no more than some of the wives and girlfriends she saw with men around town, some of the women so big you could see their thighs rub together when they walked.
Over the years, Nancy had suggested it was her personality that needed some attention, that Marla was too honest. The first time she said this was on a Monday morning before the bank opened its doors. Nancy had come in wearing a black rayon blouse that made her breasts look small and pointy, which then made her look somehow more middle-aged and inappropriately sexy. When she asked Marla if she liked it Marla had told her the truth. “Not really.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You asked me what I thought.”
“That doesn’t give you license to say what you really think, you know. Jesus.” Nancy set her cashbox loudly on the counter.
Marla’s face got hot and she stared at her keyboard.
“I mean, that’s just not how people make conversation, and, I’m sorry, but that’s why you never get asked out—you always say what you really think.”
Marla’s eyes began to fill and she had to reach for one of the tissues the bank left out for its customers. It was the start of another workweek and all she’d done over the weekend was call her parents down in Florida, gone grocery shopping, mopped her kitchen floor, and watched rented movies with Edna. She began to dab at the corners of her eyes, then heard Nancy let out a breath, felt her hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“I know.”
“It’s just—you need to go with the flow more, okay? Make a little small talk.”
But no matter how much Nancy had suggested this over the years, Marla was not convinced; if a man was impressed with small talk, how big could he really be? When she was a girl, her own father only spoke when he had something to say, his feet up on the plaid hassock in front of the TV, and it’d be one or two words, a question whose answer he only seemed to half listen to. She’d feel invisible and say, “Daddy, you’re not listening.” But by the time she was out of high school and going to the business college in Boston, she had long since stopped waiting for him to respond more than he did. She’d sit on the couch next to his recliner at the end of a long afternoon of classes and he might reach over and pinch her knee. “Having fun? Learning anything?”
“I’m learning things.” That the world was a marketplace of numbers, nothing but numbers: debit columns and profit margins, mergers, acquisitions, charts, graphs, codes, leveraged buyouts, and bankruptcies; that she always did well on exams and ate lunch alone; that she began to see her mother as a woman, a truly unhappy one, who had always worried about money and could hardly let a day pass without mentioning how poorly the boxboard company had treated her husband. Marla began to notice how old her mother seemed to be getting, that after so many years working the switchboard at St. Mary’s Hospital she spoke to everyone with a slightly impatient edge, as if she still had the headset on and was getting ready to press a button and send whatever you were saying along to somebody else. Soon Marla became friends with another woman who ate alone too, a sweet big-nosed girl who worked part-time at a bank downtown. She said they were looking for somebody reliable to work a window, and just two days after their graduation, she introduced Marla to Dorothy, who never smiled but took her on anyway. Then Marla’s friend got married to Frank Harrison III, the son of one of the loan officers, and at the reception Marla had gotten tipsy with her new workmates. She’d danced with Nancy’s husband Carl, who had pressed his sweaty cheek to hers; she felt included and welcome, and the whole room seemed to be lit with the light of open doorways; Marla began to believe that her childhood was something she’d endured, and now that she was in the adult world things would get easier, better.
AT THE BANK, her tasks were repetitive and her days soon became predictable, yet there was a real comfort in dressing well and having people trust you to store their money with precision and honesty; sometimes Marla would see one of her customers on the street and get an almost shy but respectful wave, the kind she’d once given to her own gynecologist, the kind you give to the one you trust with the knowledge of what you have.
Marla began to hope for more, too; a real boyfriend, the loving company of someone other than her old cat, Edna. And Nancy was right. Over the years Marla had had conversations with men at house parties and bank barbecues, but she never could seem to keep things going; she could only talk about work, about interest rates and the convenience of online banking, her computer screen hurting her eyes at the end of the day. There was really little else she knew much about. Soon enough even the homeliest of men would smile politely, then drift away with their plate of food to either talk with somebody else, or just stand alone at the bar or buffet table. Marla would stay where she was and try to pretend she didn’t care. She knew she was dull company, and she also knew if she were slim and pretty, but just as dull, they wouldn’t drift away at all. Sometimes Nancy or one of the other girls would whisper to Marla to follow, to keep the conversation going no matter what. But Marla refused; if someone wasn’t interested in her, then he wasn’t interested in her.
Nancy suggested she look in the personal ads or log into an online dating service. But the idea left Marla feeling more desperate than she believed she truly was, and she resented these prods from her friends. All of them had come from big loud families, and Nancy already had her own, but what they didn’t understand, Marla thought, was that she’d always been alone; she had no brother or sister. Until now there’d only been one real friend, the last two years of middle school—Hannah. She had a round face, stringy hair, and always smelled like mustard and clothes starch. She lived next door and for two years they spent nearly every afternoon playing board games, reading Judy Blume books side by side on the bed, watching TV and eating cereal out of the box, washing it down with Coke or Pepsi, getting giddy and laughing so hard Marla could see a forked vein in Hannah’s forehead. Then it was high school, and Hannah’s face was no longer round; she had breasts and a waist and slim legs she showed off in tight jeans; she grew her hair long, and if Marla saw her at all it was as she climbed into a boy’s car and roared off down the street.
Then, in the late spring of her eighth year at the bank, Dennis Munson started coming to her window. He was big, with a beard and a hard-looking belly, the rest of him thick and solid like he’d done something athletic at one time. Marla didn’t notice him much at first. But after a while it seemed he always waited for her window when another was open, and when he stepped up she felt something flutter just under her ribs. She was drawn to him: his size and quiet sweetness, his neat and legible deposit slips, the tentative way he’d push them over to her, his thirty thousand dollars in savings. Marla thought a balance like that showed maturity, the kind of person who planned ahead. He had a high voice for a man, but it was melodious, too, the way he would say, “How are you today?,” each word pulled smoothly into the next, like a lyric she’d never heard before.
On a Friday in May, twenty minutes before the bank locked its doors, he deposited his payroll check with her, took his weekend spending money—one hundred and twenty-five dollars—and stood there looking at her, blinking fast, like he had something in his eyes. “Do you have plans after work?”
Marla’s blood seemed to pause in her veins; was he asking what she thought he was? “Not really.”
“Want to get a bite to eat with me?” His eyes stopped blinking and big Dennis Munson was looking right at her—just her face, but Marla felt as if he was seeing every bit of her, and it was all okay with him.
“All right.”
“I’ll meet you out front after you close?”
Marla nodded and tried to smile. Her mouth was dry and she couldn’t look at him and she didn’t want to say anything more. She picked up a stack of deposit slips and tapped them on the counter. She turned to her keyboard and pressed the space bar three times. When she looked back up, he was on his way out the door, his tweed-covered back looking so broad. Soon Nancy’s face was inches from Marla’s, her voice a shrill whisper: “Make him take you someplace nice.”
And it was nice, a small Italian restaurant on the other side of town. Dennis owned a Nissan, and he opened the passenger door for her, the inside clean and smelling like vanilla air freshener. Stuck to the dustless dashboard was a small notepad and pencil and his neat penmanship:
3 sectors?
Frequency reuse pattern of 7?
Marla asked him about it, and when she did her voice sounded just right to her, not flat or nervous or overeager to please, and she enjoyed listening to what Dennis told her as he drove through town.
“I’m a radio-frequency engineer. I get my best thoughts on the highway.”
“Maybe driving fast makes your brain go faster.” Marla meant this as a real possibility, but big Dennis laughed and she did too, and she liked how warm his smile was after the laugh was over.
At the restaurant he pulled her chair out for her, a gesture Marla had only seen in Gene Kelly movies. He asked if she’d like a glass of wine and Marla nodded, trying to think if she wanted white or red, but before she said anything Dennis waved the waiter over and ordered a bottle of Chianti. The busboy brought over a basket of glistening garlic bread. Marla was going to abstain, but Dennis cut a section off for her and placed it on her bread plate before serving himself.
They were quiet at first, studying the menus, chewing garlic bread, sipping their wine. Marla was hungry, and if alone would’ve ordered lasagna or veal parmigiana. But with Big Dennis Munson she settled on a plate of antipasto.
“That’s all?”
“Yes, I’m not that hungry.”
“You sure?” He looked concerned, his lips pursed behind his whiskers, and Marla knew why she was so relaxed; she felt appreciated and cared for, had ever since she’d first noticed him waiting for her window, and now tonight the way he held his car door open for her, how he’d laughed at her accidental joke.
“Well,” she said, “could we share something? Lasagna or something?”
“Sure we could.”
They finished the garlic bread, then spilt the antipasto and a platter of lasagna and sausages. The waiter brought them each a clean plate, but Dennis waved him away and pushed the lasagna to the middle of the small table, and they ate it slowly, one bite at a time, till their forks touched and Marla’s face and throat flushed.
He’d been telling her about his job scouting locations for cellular towers, about his three brothers, two of whom were engineers, too. How his company transferred him here six months ago, and how much he liked these old New England mill towns, the mountains to the north, the beach to the east. And even though he didn’t ask her many questions about herself, Marla felt privileged to hear some of his life. They each ordered a tapioca pudding for dessert, and she was grateful when he dropped her at her car in the bank parking lot and took her hand in both of his, said in his high voice, “I had a nice time with you. Can we do it again sometime?”
“Yes, I’d like that.” Marla’s face felt puffy to her, too warm from the wine, and she hoped she didn’t look fat as he stood there taking her in, her hand lost in his. He leaned forward and kissed her on the upper cheek. His whiskers were surprisingly soft.
They dated for five weeks, ate at nearly all the restaurants in town, went to six movies—most of them action films Dennis had heard were quite good—and started seeing each other during the day as well. One Saturday in early June they held hands and strolled along the new boardwalk along the river. The sun was bright and Marla smelled the drying mud of the riverbanks, the hot pretzels of the vendor in the shade of his own umbrella. There was a young family there, a boy and girl with their mother and father, the woman slim and pretty, her bare legs lean and hard-looking. Marla was aware of her own legs being twice as large and not muscular at all. She was wearing baggy khaki shorts that went almost to her knees; before Dennis picked her up she’d changed out of them twice, but it was too hot for sweatpants or even a long skirt, and she knew those shorts were exactly what she would wear if she were going out today alone. But when Dennis picked her up he smiled at her as warmly as he always did, as if he really appreciated her, admired her even; he wore shorts too, and Marla saw how thick and pale and hairy his legs were. Now they were past the pretzel vendor and the family, walking under the sun along the river. She could smell Dennis’s cologne—too perfumey, she thought—but she had begun to match that smell up with him and was growing to like it, the same way she was growing to like nearly everything about him: his bushy beard and big hands, the careful way he held her when they kissed longer and longer after each date, the way he seemed to listen to whatever she had to say—her stories from work usually, describing impatient customers or Dorothy’s constant demand for efficiency, for their cashbox and keyboard totals to be perfect to the penny every shift. And Dennis would listen completely, walking slowly beside her, nodding his head, his eyes on the ground in front of them.
At Pedro’s the girls teased her gently about being smitten, and Lisa squeezed a lime into her drink and asked if the eagle had landed yet.
“What?”
“You know, the eagle. Has he landed in your nest?”
Everyone laughed and Marla’s face got hot, and she was relieved when Nancy seemed to rescue her with a joke about a priest and nine nuns. As she did, Marla held her margarita and looked around the table at her best friends in the cool blue light of Pedro’s: Lisa and her dark sassy eyes; Cheryl and her streaked hair, square jaw, and tanning-booth tan; Nancy with her wire-rimmed glasses and pretty lined face holding back a laugh as she described nuns riding bicycles with no seats. Marla felt more a part of them than ever. She kept hearing the words eagle and nest, and something warm seemed to stir and loosen inside her, the same feeling she got whenever she and Dennis touched. She’d been wondering why he never tried to do more than that; he seemed to like her body and did not shy away from pressing his hands into the flesh above her hips as they kissed. Maybe he didn’t know she wanted to. Maybe he needed some encouragement.
The next day after lunch, Friday, she walked to the pharmacy in Railroad Square, found the aisle with enemas, vaginal creams, and douches, then the small box of colorful condoms. She was drawn to one with the nude silhouette of a man and woman facing each other, Maximum Protection printed where their lower bodies should be. She walked straight to the counter. The cashier was a woman much older than she was, who narrowed her eyes through bifocals at the price on the box, nothing else. Soon the condoms were in a bag in Marla’s hand, and as she stepped out onto the sunlit sidewalk she felt part of the bigger picture somehow, more of a citizen of the world she lived in.
That night Dennis had wanted to see a cop thriller, but Marla insisted they see instead a movie about an angel who falls in love with a mortal on earth and is willing to give up his wings to have her. When the movie ended, her mascara was smeared and she was leaning her cheek against Dennis’s shoulder. They were sitting at the wall end of a row and didn’t have to stand right away when the lights came up. She held his hand in both of hers, and she imagined him as a big bearded angel shucking his wings and all his powers to sit with her in the dark of a movie theater, to make love with her in his bedroom. She kissed his neck and whispered: “I think we should go to your house.”
“Right, I should finally give you a tour.”
“I don’t mean that.”
He turned in his seat and looked at her, his brown eyes alert above the tangle of his beard. “Are you sure?”
She nodded and he smiled at her. Shyly, she thought.
It was a quiet drive back to his neighborhood of two-story ranch houses and square lawns beneath evenly spaced streetlights. He unlocked his front door and the dark house smelled like vacuumed carpet and something vaguely fruity, bananas in the kitchen. There was only the light from the steps outside. Dennis took her sweater, then kissed her, his mouth open, his arms pulling her to him.
He led her upstairs. Then she was in his room, and she was grateful he left on only the hall light. As he sat on the bed and began to untie his shoes, she reached into her pocketbook for the box of condoms. Her fingers were trembling. She didn’t know if he could see what she had, and she didn’t want to call attention to it yet, so she made her way through the partial darkness and placed it on his bedside table. If he noticed it, he didn’t show it. The room was too dark to see much, but she undressed quickly and slid beneath the covers, which felt a bit gritty and smelled like his cologne. Then he was beside her. She could feel the entire length of his body, its fleshy warmth. He began to touch her knee and kiss her gently, tentatively. His leg was over hers, his knee resting where no one else had ever been. She could feel his hardness, and her eyes filled up. She wanted to tell him how much this meant to her, but as he began to kiss her neck and shoulder, then the beginning of her breast, she was afraid if he knew the truth he would think something must be wrong with her and everything that was happening would stop. She let him kiss her nipple, then pulled him to her and kissed his lips; he was careful not to rest his great weight on her, and she felt the pressure of him against her down there, the way she began to open up and take him in, the stretch and slight burn. Dennis stopped.
“I don’t have anything.”
Marla could feel her heart beating in her arm as she reached for the condom box. Dennis sat up and she listened as he opened it, then unwrapped a package, the quiet of him rolling it onto himself. Was that it? Did he roll it on? She felt cold and covered her breasts with her arms, again grateful for the dark, grateful when he positioned himself over her, grateful for his warmth, for his slow careful push into her, as if he’d known all along anyway, and it was gentle and sweet and hurt all the way to feeling good.
FOR THREE WEEKS she slept at his house every night, living out of her suitcase, garment bag, and cosmetics case. Sometimes she didn’t have all she needed and would get up in the near dark an hour early, kiss sleeping Dennis on the cheek, and drive to her apartment to get ready for work. At the bank and then at Pedro’s she disciplined herself to tell her friends nothing; over the years she’d seen how telling too much could backfire, especially with Lisa, who would fall in love with a man on Tuesday only to be talked out of it by Cheryl and Nancy on Thursday. Maybe if she hadn’t shined a light on something so private, Marla had always thought, then it would have had a chance to grow into something special. And even though a part of her couldn’t wait to tell her friends the news, she felt sure the telling would cheapen it, or maybe jinx it somehow, so she sipped her margarita and let them talk about work and their families, about vacation time and bad TV, and even though they had no idea she wasn’t the same Marla anymore, she sat back and felt the privileged comfort of the initiated.
EARLY ONE MORNING in July, a Wednesday when it was drizzling outside and Marla was dressing to leave for her apartment and work, Dennis opened his eyes and said, “Wait.”
Marla sat beside him on the mattress. The room was dim and she could smell the warm cotton sheets they’d slept in, made love in. He put his hand on her knee. “I have a big closet, you know.”
“Yeah?”
“Big bedroom, big living room.” He yawned and stretched his arms over his head. “Plenty of room, really.”
“Dennis.”
He squeezed her knee and looked right at her, his brown eyes swollen with sleep, but bright and hopeful. “You want to?”
“You mean, move in?”
“Yes.”
Marla smiled and nodded. Her eyes filled up and she wiped at them, and she and Dennis both started to laugh.
At the bank that morning, Marla performed her duties cheerfully. When Dorothy unlocked the vault for them to get their cashboxes, Marla was the first one in. While she set up her drawer and got her monitor running, she hummed an old tune she felt sure was a love song. She could hear the loan officers talking in the outer offices, Cheryl and Lisa opening their cashboxes and tapping their keyboards; she could smell the lemon wood polish the cleaners had used on the counter early this morning, Nancy’s coffee as she passed behind Marla and said, “Morning.”
“Morning, Nance.” Marla glanced over at her friend, watched as she set down her World’s Greatest Mom coffee mug, cashbox, and pocketbook, her glasses already at the end of her lovely nose. Part of her wanted to tell her the news and part of her didn’t. She knew Nancy would want to hear the particulars, and Marla didn’t want to talk about them yet; she was still feeling them, the way she seemed to see everything as if for the first or last time: all the spots and stains in the lobby carpet, the thin cracks in the plaster ceiling way above the security lamps, the cobweb in the far corner there too, the false green of the plastic potted plant near the door, all the ink smudges on her computer monitor, the creak of the stool beneath her. Somehow, what she and Dennis were planning to do made this building and everything that happened in it seem smaller and less important.
Dorothy walked across the lobby with the key ring in her hand; she wore a gold cardigan sweater that didn’t quite match the rust of her slacks and, from the back, with her short hair and flat shoes, made her look more like a man than a woman. Marla watched her unlock the doors, and she felt a surge of tenderness for her that she’d never quite had before, the guilty gratitude of the last swimmer in the lifeboat watching one left behind in the water.
That night Marla and Dennis made love twice, once on the sofa in the flickering light of the TV, and again in his bed before sleep. When he finished the second time they were both quiet awhile, Dennis breathing hard, Marla’s hands holding his soft, sweaty back. They both seemed to be in the presence of something other than themselves, this silence that pulled Marla to fill it with something significant and true.
“I love you, Dennis.”
He took a breath and let out half of it. “Mmm, me too.” He kissed her forehead, pulled out of her, and went to the bathroom.
Marla heard the pull of the shower curtain, the running water. She reached for a couple of tissues and patted herself between her legs. Me too, he’d said. Too shy to say I, she thought. Right? Too shy.
The next night at Pedro’s Marla waited till their second round of margaritas before she told her friends her plan to move in with Dennis. The place was louder and more crowded than usual. A group of businessmen in ties and crisp white shirts were up at the bar laughing and toasting with their drinks. A lot of the tables were full, and even the music on the stereo seemed louder, Spanish guitars and men singing high and fast. Marla and her friends were at their regular table in the corner. Lisa had been talking about this new lawyer she was seeing, Richard, a triathlete who’d told her last night she had to quit smoking if she wanted to stay in his life.
“Is that how he put it?” Nancy asked.
“Yeah,” Lisa said. “Just before he rolled off of me.”
“What?” Nancy and Cheryl looked at each other, their lips parted, their eyes full of the dark joy Marla saw in them whenever they got on the subject of men’s shortcomings. This didn’t feel like the best time to bring up her and Dennis, but when else would she?
Cheryl leaned forward. “He was inside you when he said this?”
Lisa nodded and pulled out a cigarette she’d have to smoke on the sidewalk.
“He’s a prick, Lisa,” Nancy said. “You know that, right? Don’t get caught up in how handsome he is and how much money he makes; a prick’s a prick.” Nancy wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked down at her margarita and stirred it with her straw. Marla thought of Carl, his empty eyes, then Dennis, the way he’d invited her so sweetly to live with him, his big hand on her knee.
The music was too loud on the stereo. Marla leaned forward and half shouted: “Dennis asked me to live with him.”
“He did?” Nancy looked at her as if for the first time all night. “When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Uh-oh,” Cheryl said.
Marla turned to her. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know, it’s kind of early in the relationship, isn’t it?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Lisa said, looking hard now. “I’ve met guys on Friday and moved in on Sunday.”
“Yeah, like you should be Marla’s role model, too.”
“Are you going to do it?” Nancy’s fingertips were on Marla’s arm and she was smiling.
Marla nodded.
“Good for you,” Lisa said.
“I don’t know.” Cheryl reached for a corn chip, then dropped it back into the basket. “What’s the rush? I mean, are you thinking of marrying him?”
“Maybe.” Marla sucked hard on her straw and was surprised there was so much liquid left in her glass. She was beginning to feel hemmed in, and she wasn’t sure why she’d told her friends when she knew all along at least one of them would end up talking about it in this way, like the decision wasn’t entirely hers.
Nancy gently squeezed her arm. “How did he ask you?”
“In bed.”
“Yeah,” Cheryl said. “That’s where he wants to keep you, too.”
“How do you know that?” Lisa said. “Maybe he loves her and wants to spend more time with her.”
“Then he should buy her a ring.”
“What if I’m not ready for a ring, though, Cheryl?”
Cheryl shrugged. “Look, I just don’t think they should get a wife for free.”
“But she’s not going to be his wife.” Lisa raised the unlit cigarette to her lips.
Cheryl leaned closer to Marla. “Will you be sleeping together?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. Will you be cooking?”
“What’s your point, Cheryl?” Lisa lowered her cigarette.
“I know her point,” Nancy said. “She’s afraid he’s going to be getting his milk for free so why buy the cow—?” Nancy seemed to stop talking in mid-sentence. Heat rose in Marla’s face, and a foot kicked her under the table and she was sure it was Lisa’s aiming for Nancy.
“Excuse me.” Marla made her way past the crowded tables in the blue light and smoke of the restaurant she came to every week with her best friends, but she felt like crying, and she wanted to leave early and go to Dennis’s house, to be with him right now and not them. She stepped into the bathroom. It was bright, empty, and quiet. She stood there on the hard tiles and she felt as if she were waiting for somebody to come get her, to come get her and take her someplace else.
BECAUSE DENNIS WAS thirty-seven years old and owned all the furniture he needed, there wasn’t much room for Marla’s, so Dennis suggested they store it in the garage—her double bed and frame with the turned maple posts, the matching bureau and mirror, her deep rose sofa and love seat, her table and chairs, boxes of dishes, pots and pans—he and Marla stacked them neatly in the far corner of the empty bay next to a rolled garden hose and two rakes. It was a Saturday morning and muggy. They’d rented a small U-Haul truck. It took them most of the day to fill it and empty it, both of them dressed in loose sweats, stopping occasionally to drink from a water jug they shared, to kiss briefly, Dennis’s whiskers all wet. What Marla did bring inside were her clothes, three plants, Edna’s scratching post, and two small museum prints of a willow tree by a Flemish painter whose name she could not pronounce. She hung one above the stair landing, the other on the blank wall above the toilet. The rest of the wall space throughout Dennis’s house was taken up with large framed pictures he called “graphics,” a lot of gray and red angular lines Marla supposed only an engineer could appreciate. In the living room was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and most of it was filled with paperback espionage novels, science fiction, and a few mysteries. The sofa and recliner were oversized brown naugahyde. Neither they nor the books ever had a speck of dust on them. Once Marla had asked if he had a housecleaner. Dennis smiled. “Nope, just me.”
At the end of the day after returning the truck, Dennis went off to buy them a takeout dinner, and Marla drove back to her old apartment to drop her keys off in her ex-landlord’s mailbox, check the closet and cabinets one last time, and get Edna, who was napping in her cushioned basket in the corner of the kitchen. Marla picked her up, held her to her chest, and walked through the bare rooms. Her footsteps had an echo, and it was as if she were leaving not only a place in her life, but a time too, that her years of solitude were over, that she was somehow, miraculously, rising to the next step and would no more be left behind than Edna, purring now against her, rubbing her ear against Marla’s throat.
Marla’s father was the only other man she’d ever lived with; after his workday was through, he would sit in his chair in front of the TV with the newspaper, a CC and ginger ale, and a smoking Raleigh. She imagined Dennis might do something similar, sit in that huge brown recliner and unwind in front of some news show with the paper or maybe one of his many books, she on the couch with a magazine or book of her own. She looked forward to this, quiet evenings just the two of them relaxing together like that, Edna curled up between them. But most nights when Dennis came home an hour after she did, he didn’t loosen his tie and sit down: he cleaned the house. He’d take a blue feather duster and wipe down every flat surface there was, even the tops of the door and window casings, and he did it cheerfully, whistling as he went. He owned a commercial-sized vacuum cleaner that was louder than any Marla had ever heard. It had tiny headlights that lit up six inches of carpet in front of it, and Dennis seemed to keep his attention on that six inches of space as he pushed the big machine along.
After watching him do this three nights that first week, Marla said she’d never seen anybody dust or vacuum that often, even her mother.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I like it, though; it clears my head. Plus, there’s cat hair now.”
“I can clean that.”
“No, I don’t mind.” He smiled at her. “It really clears my head.”
Marla smiled too, then walked over and hugged him, this big eccentric engineer of hers.
But there seemed to be more to this than just keeping his head clear; he expected her to keep hers clear too. Because she got home before he did, she usually cooked, and after they’d eaten Marla was content to let the dishes soak in soapy water for a half hour or so before she got up to clean them. When she lived alone she’d sit on the sofa with Edna awhile first, watch some trashy TV about movie-star gossip, or sometimes something fortifying on PBS. She’d run her fingers through Edna’s fur and sit there with her legs drawn up beneath her, nothing pressing to do for the first time all day. But Dennis didn’t do that. He insisted they do all the chores before they did anything else. “Business before pleasure, right?”
The first week or two Marla went along with this; she still felt like a guest in his home, and she did not want to be impolite. But once she settled in it was harder to do things his way just because they were his way. One night after a pasta primavera dinner she’d cooked, Marla stood from the table and went right to the living room. “Let’s do the dishes later. I’m going to relax.”
He didn’t answer her. Soon she heard the water running, Dennis rinsing the plates, glasses, and silverware, stacking them in the dishwasher. Marla stayed where she was. She reached for the remote control but wasn’t interested in watching anything, simply wanted the TV to cover up his sounds. She was still in her work clothes—a jacket, blouse, and skirt that was a bit too tight in the waist—Edna in her lap. If she were alone she would unsnap it and relax completely, but she didn’t want Dennis to see her that way. On the TV was a game show, a heavy woman trying to guess the letters of the mystery word. Dennis came into the room drying his hands on a dish towel he then folded twice. Marla smiled up at him, and he smiled back. “I love your cooking, Marla, but you sure do make a mess.”
“I do?”
“Yep.”
“Then how about if you cook next time and I’ll clean up?”
“There wouldn’t be anything to clean.” He shrugged and went back inside the kitchen.
The next night Dennis skipped his dusting and vacuuming. Instead, he baked a meatloaf, boiled and mashed some potatoes, and heated up a pan of frozen green peas. While everything cooked, he wiped down the counter and stove, washed, dried, and put away the mixing bowl and boiling pot, even swept and damp-mopped the floor before they sat down to eat. He lit a candle and they shared a bottle of red wine. Over dinner Dennis was cheerful and expansive, talking about one of his colleagues and the gentlemen’s bet that they had to come up with an engineering problem the other would not be able to solve. Marla smiled and nodded her head at all the right times, but seeing the clean, bright kitchen behind him, she couldn’t help but feel she’d just been beaten at a game she hadn’t known she was playing.
After dinner they both loaded the dishwasher, then sat on the couch watching whatever came on television or whatever Dennis switched the channel to: an old black-and-white war movie, a color war movie, music videos, a comedy from the seventies, the actors in polyester bell-bottoms. A strange stillness had opened up inside Marla. Was there a part of Dennis she hadn’t seen before? A nasty competitive streak? Dennis went into the clean kitchen and brought out a bowl of Oreo cookies. Marla didn’t want any, but sitting away from him watching him eat cookies made her feel worse; she curled her legs up and laid her cheek against his chest. He rested his arm over her side and hip and after a while she began to feel better. What did she expect? For him to be perfect in every way?
In bed, they made love in the dark, and Marla held him tightly. After, curled up together and beginning to doze, Marla felt little of what she had earlier; Dennis was a good man and she was lucky to have him. She reminded herself that living together wasn’t supposed to be easy, and she fell asleep with her cheek on his warm, hairy arm.
TWO WEEKS BEFORE LABOR DAY, Nancy left party invitations on Marla’s, Lisa’s, and Cheryl’s keyboards while they were in the vault getting their cashboxes. Nancy took pride in her invitations, usually scrolling the borders with a pattern from one of Carl’s computer programs—blooming flowers on a vine, tiny party hats and martini glasses. In the past Marla’s invitations had been addressed just to her, but this time, engraved in gold was: Marla and Dennis. This phrase lingered for her throughout the day; it reminded her of all the other phrases she’d always heard but never really listened to quite in this way: Nancy and Carl, Cheryl and Danny, Lisa and, lately, Richard. Even her own parents: Helen and Larry. And now Marla and Dennis; by choosing to be with one she had somehow been invited into a whole society of others.
At the party two weeks later, Marla spent the first half hour introducing Dennis to everyone she knew, standing close enough to him that they would know right away he wasn’t just a friend. And Dennis was much better with people than she’d ever been: he called them by their first names he didn’t forget; he smiled and laughed a lot, a Michelob Light in his big hand. Marla noticed the glances of many of the women she’d seen at these parties for years, quick appraising looks at both of them. Most appeared happy for her, relieved even. One woman, Anna Harrison, her old friend’s mother-in-law, kept her eyes on Dennis’s belly for a while, looking at Marla again before turning back to conversation. She seemed to be writing them off as the two fat people who’d found each other, and Marla felt bruised by this but only for a moment or two; Dennis was really hitting it off with Carl and some of his friends from the company, talking software and search engine capability. Nancy and Carl had set up a volleyball net in the backyard beyond the pool, croquet too, but by noon it began to rain, and the guests sat in Nancy’s plush furniture around the house eating barbecued chicken and potato salad off plates in their laps. After lunch, most of the men descended to the boys’ playroom in the basement and began a dart-throwing championship while Carl and Dennis played a video game on the wide-screen.
Soon it was just the women. They sat in Nancy’s deep sofa and chairs in the living room. Outside the French doors, rain fell on the pool, empty lawn, and the trees and lake beyond. The room smelled like leftover barbecue sauce, five or six kinds of perfume and skin cream, fresh coffee. On her glass coffee table, Nancy had set out plates and forks and cheesecake right from the bakery box. Some of the women started talking about takeout food and how they hardly ever really cooked or baked anymore.
“Who’s got time?” Nancy said, sliding wedges of cheesecake onto plates.
“Exactly,” said another.
“Frank does more cooking than I ever do.” It was Anna Harrison, the woman whose eyes had lingered on Dennis’s belly earlier. Lisa offered that Richard cooked better than she did, and she believed men were really better at it than women anyway. “Look at all the chefs. How many are women?”
“Right,” Cheryl said. “But who do you think cooks at home?”
“Good point.” Lisa grabbed her cigarette pack and excused herself to go smoke. Marla could hear the rain falling against the windows, the occasional joyful roar of the men downstairs. Nancy offered her a plate of cheesecake, but Marla said no thank you, and not because she didn’t want to draw attention to herself or her eating, but because she really felt full, satisfied. Her boyfriend was downstairs with Carl somewhere and she was sitting in this room as it fell into three or four conversations now, and even though she wasn’t talking, she didn’t feel left out of any of them. She looked past Cheryl and her incandescent blond hair as she leaned forward to give a woman named Bonnie tips on cross training. Marla could see Lisa on the other side of the French doors standing on the deck beneath the eaves out of the rain, her arms crossed, a thin stream of smoke shooting out in front of her: Marla wondered if she would quit for Richard, and even though he was probably right to make her do it, Marla was glad she had someone like Dennis, who, except for the thing about cleaning up, was content to leave her just the way she was.
A while later he and Carl came upstairs for more beer. They both looked happy and flushed. Nancy asked her husband who won and Carl jerked his thumb at Dennis: “I can’t even get close to this guy.”
Some of the women laughed. Marla smiled up at her big bushy-bearded engineer. She could feel the women watching her. She puckered her lips and Dennis leaned over, said hi, and kissed her quickly before he disappeared down the stairs with Carl. Marla raised her cup to her lips.
She felt watched by the whole room, but she kept her eyes only on Nancy, who was smiling with all her teeth, her eyes moist behind her glasses.
DENNIS AND CARL had hit it off so well that Nancy began arranging double dates for the four of them one or two Saturdays a month. They’d go to a restaurant downtown, then maybe a movie, or, once, dancing. At dinner Dennis said he’d rather go to a movie instead, but Nancy wouldn’t hear of it, and they drove over to the Marriott in Carl’s Mercedes.
The Executive Lounge was dimly lit and full of people, loud DJ rock blaring from gargantuan black speakers. Carl paid the cover charge, then led his wife between dancing couples right to the center of the crowded floor. Marla could see just the top of Nancy’s head as she began to move fast to a song Marla had heard her whole life. She’d never really danced before, but the place was so full and loud and dark nobody would really see her anyway. Why not? She pulled on Dennis’s big hand, but he wasn’t moving. He shook his head at her, then nodded at a small table a cocktail waitress was just finishing clearing. They sat down and Dennis ordered a round of what they’d all been drinking at the restaurant.
A new song began before the old one ended, The Rolling Stones this time; Marla knew most of their music from the radio. She leaned over the table to Dennis and shouted: “I want to dance!”
Dennis shook his head. “I don’t dance.”
“Never?”
He smiled, then shook his head again, then sipped his Michelob.
Marla sat back in her chair. The dance floor was too crowded to see Nancy or Carl, all those well-dressed bodies bobbing and jerking and swaying in the dim light, the music so loud she could feel the bass beat in her wineglass and under her fingertips on the table, too loud for her and Dennis to even talk. She sipped her wine and watched the crowd. She could feel Nancy and Carl out there, and she didn’t like it; Marla and Dennis should be there too, the same fun-loving couple who’d been laughing at Nancy and Carl’s jokes all night, who’d been swapping stories from work, raising their glasses to toast the good times, Nancy and Carl smiling at them in the candlelight on the other side of the table, smiling at their fun friends: Marla and Dennis.
Marla glanced over at him now. He was watching the DJ up on the small corner stage, studying his microphone and speakers, the electronics of his sound system, it seemed. Always an engineer. It was that part of Dennis that Carl seemed to admire so much, but without Carl treating him with such respect for his engineering skill, without Nancy smiling at both of them for having found each other, Marla sat there feeling a little lonely. But why should she feel this way sitting next to Dennis? She reached over and squeezed his hand. He smiled at her behind his beard, raised his beer to her in a toast. She toasted too, though she felt like an actor backstage rehearsing for the next scene, and she couldn’t wait for the music to end and for Nancy and Carl to come back.
AT HOME, AS ONE WEEK pushed into another, little things about Dennis began to bother Marla: the sometimes nasal way he’d call her “Marl”; how at breakfast every morning he’d skip the newspaper headlines and do the crossword puzzle instead; how he cleaned up so often the place never looked lived in; even their lovemaking needed something—it always seemed to stop just as things began to gather all warm and rising for her, and she didn’t like how he always took a shower after. It made her feel dirty and like what they’d done was slightly wrong somehow. He stopped wanting to go anywhere except on weekends, preferred instead to watch TV or go to his computer room and play games where the viewer entered a cyberworld armed with a shotgun, machete, and hand grenades. He taught her how to play it too, but sitting in that dark room staring at the simulated colors of bad muscular men bleeding to death from just the click of the mouse on Dennis’s desk, from the electronic blast of the shotgun or the swipe of the machete blade, Marla felt the same bruised emptiness that she did after an action movie, and she’d kiss Dennis on the forehead and leave the room while he kept playing.
There was something else too—and she hated herself for this—but it was his weight: watching him walk naked into or out of the bathroom she often looked away, not out of respect for his privacy, but because she honestly did not like to see the way his hairy chest pushed out to the side like a woman’s, how his belly hung almost to his penis, which looked somehow boyish and outmatched in the great mass of all that flesh and hair. At first she thought this reflected his size and strength, his very manliness. But that’s when she’d allowed herself to think he’d been a wrestler or weight lifter in college, maybe even a football player. Not the sedentary man she now knew him to be and to always have been. He told her that he spent his childhood in his room reading and drawing robots and guns and galactic cities floating in fiery orbits, that college was one long period of book after book and a lot of hamburgers, pizza, and fries.
She found herself judging him for this, especially at night after dinner, dessert too, when he’d bring a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter to the living room with him, or a second helping of dessert, or a hunk of cheese and bowl of nuts. One night in late November, a couple of days after a Thanksgiving they’d spent at a restaurant, she had a cold and sat on the couch wrapped in a blanket, holding a hot cup of lemon tea. She glanced at the peanut butter crackers on his plate and said, “Are you really hungry?”
He’d just sat down. He looked over at her, his cheeks flushed. “Obviously.”
Marla didn’t know if he was angry or embarrassed, and she felt mean-spirited and small. For a long minute or two there was nothing but the sounds of the TV, the forced laughter of the studio audience, slender actors with good skin and shiny hair looking naturally appealing.
“You shouldn’t talk, you know.” Dennis bit off half a cracker and chewed.
“What?”
“You know what I mean.”
Marla’s face burned. It was as if he’d just overturned the couch and she was falling to the floor. “You’re talking about my weight?”
Dennis swallowed and bit into another cracker, his eyes on the television. There were crumbs in his beard, and she hated him for it, and they began to blur, and she jumped off the couch and rushed upstairs to their room. His room, really. His bed and his bureau and bedside table. On the walls were framed his degrees and another boring graphic. On the bureau were his wallet and keys. Where was her room? She curled up on the bed and cried. She could hear the jingle of a commercial downstairs, and she wondered how long he’d stay down there without coming up to address what had just happened between them.
And what did happen?
She was mean and then so was he? But it was more than just that; Marla couldn’t help but notice that part of her was relieved to see another ugly side of him.
The TV noise stopped and she heard the creak of the carpeted stairs, then the sinking of the bed, the smell of peanut butter and his perfumey cologne.
“Marl?”
“Yeah?” She sniffled, dabbed at her nose with two fingers.
“Do you think I’m too heavy?”
“Do you think I am?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you say what you said?”
“To get back at you, I guess.”
Marla sat up and blew her nose. He rested his hand on her thigh and she knew they were on their way to patching this up, but something had opened between them and she wasn’t sure she wanted it closed. She looked straight ahead at the dark window. “I’ve always been fat, you know.”
“Me too.”
Marla wiped her nose. “But I bet you had girlfriends.”
“Two or three. Nobody special.”
“Well, I didn’t.” Marla kept her eyes on the black glass of the window, the reflection of the lampshade in it. “You’re my first boyfriend.”
“I am?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He nodded his head slightly. She wished she hadn’t told him but was also glad she did, as if this were some kind of test they could not avoid, though she did not know who was testing whom.
“Are you surprised?”
“No. I mean, yes, of course I am. What’s that have to do with anything?”
Marla shrugged. “I’m not the best catch in the world, Dennis.”
“Marla—”
“No, really. I’m not pretty, all I know how to do is count other people’s money, I—”
“Shh, stop that, Marla. You shouldn’t say that.” His voice was gentle but distant too, like he was already beginning to believe what she was saying and didn’t want to. He pulled his hand from her thigh and stared at the floor again. “You should never say that about yourself.”
They sat quietly for a moment, then he stood and took a long, tired breath. “Want me to bring your tea up?”
She shook her head and listened to him walk heavily out of the room and down the stairs.
LATER, IN THE middle of the night, she woke up with him pushing himself inside her and he did it harder and faster than ever before. It hurt a little, but then felt good, and lasted longer too. He finally stopped and let out a moan, said into her ear, breathing hard, “I’m sorry, I was asleep.”
“Me too.”
He went to the bathroom first and Marla lay there in the dark. She patted the bedside table for the box of tissues, Dennis’s seed swimming freely inside her. What if it found what it was heading for? She heard the shower turn on, the jerk of the curtain, Dennis washing himself off.
That night she dreamed she was sitting in a rocking chair on a screened-in porch overlooking deep woods, sunlight coming through in brilliant patches; there was something warm and soft in her lap, a puppy, she thought. She looked down at it and saw a baby—a baby with fine black hair and a sweet pinched face.
The next day was Sunday, and on the way home from the matinee of a spy movie she hadn’t wanted to see, she told Dennis her dream. She studied his profile as he drove, the way he nodded slightly, his eyes narrowed as if he were listening to the radio report of news in a distant country. She took a breath. “Think we’ll ever have a baby, Denny?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Marla felt slapped. She looked out the window at large houses, one with raked piles of leaves, a swing set in the yard. She felt like crying, not because of what he’d said but how he’d said it, his voice adamant and final. Then his big hand was on her knee and she wanted to push it away.
“You know I love you, Marl, but do you know how much kids cost? How much attention they need? It’s nothing personal, hon. I just can’t be bothered with that.”
“Bothered? You make it sound like one big nuisance.”
“Well, isn’t it?”
“Did your mother think so?”
He smiled. “I know she did.” Then he chuckled and began to reminisce about him and his brothers always destroying the house, chasing each other from room to room. He seemed to be done with the real conversation, but it had cleared a cold dead path through her head; it was the first time he’d ever told her he loved her, but hearing him talk this way about what she had always viewed as the highest gift God could give, his paw resting too heavily on her thigh, the sickening smell of vanilla air freshener in his car, another Sunday afternoon wasted at a movie where men shot or impaled or blew up each other, she began to suspect she was nothing more than an easy addition to his life, one he could penetrate half-asleep or go out with on the weekend, but that’s it—no one to start a family with, nothing like that. Her seatbelt was pushing into her hip, and she began to feel the possibility of an end ahead of them, the way the light of an August afternoon could sometimes cast the shadows of October.
THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Dennis invited her to fly to Cleveland to spend the holidays with one of his brothers and his family. He asked her this before work as they were walking to their cars in the cleared driveway Dennis paid a man to plow. The air was cold in Marla’s lungs and her breath was a thin cloud in front of her.
“What do you say, Marl?”
She opened her car door and glanced over at him standing at his Nissan, his tie loosely knotted beneath his overcoat, his beard glistening in the harsh sunlight. “I don’t think so; I need to visit my parents. It’s been a year.”
He nodded and looked only mildly disappointed, as if he were imagining the good times ahead of him anyway. “Well, think about it.”
He backed out of the driveway first, and at the end of the street waved in his rearview mirror at her before he turned left and she turned right; and she didn’t want to think about it. How could she be the woman he was going to bring home to his family? All the smiles and gifts and polite passings of gravy would feel like one big lie, which is what she was beginning to feel like—a liar. Somehow she was becoming the kind of woman she didn’t like, somebody who felt one way but smiled it off in a mask of cheerfulness, the kind of woman who got very good at small talk.
As she drove past all the identical ranch houses of their neighborhood, Marla’s face still felt swollen from her cold. If it weren’t for the Christmas rush, everybody in the world waiting in line to get their money, she’d call in sick and go back to bed. But again, it’d be his bed. Her comforter was on it, but that wasn’t enough. She missed her old apartment; she missed the bathroom that only had her things in it; she missed Edna curling up with her on the sofa in her living room with her framed prints on the wall—and no illustrations of perfect parallel lines; no dustless bookshelves full of paperback spy novels; no pressure to keep things clean and just where they belong at all times; and not this lingering feeling that her life was really no better than it had been before when she was alone, an earlier unhappiness that now seemed preferable to this one.
TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS Marla drove Dennis to the airport. He hugged and kissed her and told her not to get sunburned in Florida. She watched him hurry toward the gate and lift his suitcase onto the conveyor belt for the X-ray machine. He waved to her and she waved back. Her flight left the next day, but for the past week she hadn’t been able to picture herself on it. Whenever she visited her mother and father she always felt like a teenager again, a time in her life when she had no friends at all; she couldn’t bear feeling that way now, and just last week at the vault Nancy asked her to spend the holiday with her and her family if she wasn’t going anywhere. Marla watched Dennis’s back get smaller and smaller. Why not? It probably wouldn’t cost too much to change the ticket. When she could no longer see him in the crowd, she began thinking what she’d tell her mother on the phone, that she had the flu and would have to come see them sometime after New Year’s.
Christmas Eve after dinner, Marla and Nancy sat on throw pillows in front of a gas fire under the lights of the tree. Carl and his sons, Luke and Kyle, were downstairs playing a new video game called Blood Conquest, a gift from Carl to his boys that he insisted they open that night. Nancy and Marla wore sweaters and slippers, and they sipped eggnog with just the right amount of bourbon in it. On the stereo Bing Crosby and David Bowie were singing “Peace on Earth.” Nancy sat with her eyes closed listening to the music, her pretty face tilted slightly. Marla could still smell the glaze from the ham they’d baked, the homemade rolls. Outside there was very little snow, but there was a cold wind, and the bare branches of the trees made a cracking sound as they swayed.
They had stuffing and three pies to make for tomorrow, but Nancy just wanted to sit and rest awhile in front of the tree and its mountain of wrapped presents, four from Marla: slacks and a cashmere jacket for Nancy, a case of vintage red wine for Carl, matching wool sweaters from Ireland for the boys. She was looking forward to giving them their gifts tomorrow morning, though part of her felt like an intruder into this family’s Christmas. Dennis didn’t even know she wasn’t in Florida, and she could still hear her mother’s disappointed voice on the phone.
Against the fireplace were two tall boxes wrapped in gold—skis for Kyle and new lacrosse sticks for Luke, Nancy had whispered to her earlier. Now Marla stared at them; they looked to her like oversized bricks of gold, and she thought about the huge vault she and the girls put their cashboxes into every night before the bank’s doors closed, all the stacks of new currency that were absolutely worthless without the real gold in Fort Knox they stood for, or at least used to. She and Dennis planned to give each other presents after their trips, but she didn’t have one for him yet. She wondered what he was doing right now at his brother’s house, but there was no pull or ache in this wondering, and she knew she did not miss him. She didn’t. Her throat began to close up and her face felt too hot. She looked into the gas fire, at the steady, controlled flames beneath the stone logs. A new song began, strings and bells.
“Marla, honey, are you crying?”
Marla covered her face.
“What, sweetie. What’s the matter?”
Marla shook her head, felt Nancy’s hand on her shoulder. “What is it, hon? Tell me.”
“I don’t think I love Dennis, Nancy. I really don’t.” She’d said it, so she must mean it, and now it was out, and there was just her heaving shoulders and wet face and running nose beneath her fingers, Nancy handing her a tissue, her friend’s soft, motherly voice saying, “That’s it, let it out. It’s okay, honey. Just let it all out.”
NANCY LET HER CRY for a while. She patted and rubbed her back. “Are you sure about this? You both look so happy together every time we go out.”
“That’s because we have a good time with you guys.” Marla sniffled and blew her nose. “You’re fun.”
“Yeah, but I see how you both look at each other. There’s something real there.”
“Then why do I feel so lonely?” Marla began to cry again. “I just don’t feel like me anymore.”
“Everybody feels like that sometimes, honey.”
“You feel lonely with Carl?”
“Yes.”
“All the time?”
“No, and I bet you don’t either, Marla.”
“Most of the time.”
“That’s just ’cause you’re new to all this.” Nancy raised her glass and stared at the lights of the tree. Her face looked tired and sweet and vaguely superior, and Marla remembered being new at the bank and not knowing anything. But this was different, and she didn’t like seeing Nancy look that way right now.
“It’s been six months, Nancy.”
“What’s your hurry? It took me a year to get used to living with Carl. I mean, what do men do anyway? They work, eat, drink, and play games. Sex for them is in the sports-and-recreation category. You can’t live with a man and not be lonely.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. Besides, once you have kids it all changes anyway. Everything seems to make more sense then.”
“Dennis doesn’t want any.”
“How do you know that?”
“He said he didn’t.”
Nancy seemed to take this in a second, then waved her hand in front of her face. “Have you ever met a man who did? Honey, it’s not in their nature. They don’t even think about it. Just get pregnant and he’ll rise to the occasion. It makes them feel more like a man, you know.” Nancy laughed. She looked back at the tree and sipped her eggnog.
For a moment Marla had a hard time swallowing. “You’re afraid I’ll lose him, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m afraid you’re expecting too much from him and you’ll give up too soon. Which wouldn’t be fair to Dennis, by the way.”
“Is it fair to pretend around him?”
“There are worse things than pretending, Marla.”
“Like what?”
“Not trying hard enough.” Nancy smiled at her, her eyes patient and loving behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Marla sipped her eggnog, felt the bourbon flash down her throat, like medicine she wasn’t sure she needed.
SHE WOKE CHRISTMAS MORNING to the smell of cinnamon rolls and coffee. She could hear Carl’s deep voice coming from the kitchen, then Nancy’s, high and cheerful. No sound of the boys yet, though even teenagers would probably get out of bed early today. A weak light came through the curtains, and Marla pulled the covers to her chin. Her mouth was dry and her head ached slightly behind her eyes. Her stomach felt queasy too. It was the bourbon eggnogs, staying up late in the kitchen, helping Nancy with stuffing, rolling out pie dough and pinching it into pie plates. The last thing they talked about before bed was Nancy’s New Year’s Eve party next week, how this one would be formal. Black tie and gowns. Champagne and lobster bisque.
Against the guest room wall was a dressing table and mirror. Marla had had one like it when she was a child, though she’d never sat at it the way pretty girls probably did, staring gratefully at themselves, doing things with their hair, trying on new shades of blush and eye shadow and lip gloss. If Marla ever used it at all it was for a desk when hers was too cluttered, and she’d prop a textbook against the glass so she wouldn’t have to see what she already knew. And that’s what Nancy really meant last night, didn’t she? That some people have to try even harder at love than others, and she was one of them. She felt old and tired.
From down the hall came the muffled sounds of music, high voices singing in a chorus on Nancy’s stereo. It made Marla think of white flowing robes and baby Jesus swaddled on a bed of straw. There was a soft knocking on her door, then Nancy standing there in her robe and no makeup, holding two cups of coffee. Marla smiled at her friend and Nancy smiled back. “Merry Christmas, Marla.”
MARLA WORKED the short week between Christmas and New Year’s. Business was slow and when customers did come in, they seemed vaguely ashamed of themselves, as if they’d spent too much money over the holidays and all the bank tellers knew it. There were long stretches when Marla killed time counting and recounting her drawer, restacking her deposit and withdrawal slips, walking to the coffee room for water. At night, at home alone on Dennis’s Naugahyde couch with Edna, she watched television she didn’t really see or listen to; in the kitchen, her dirty dishes from supper sat in the sink. When she finally went to bed it felt too wide and empty, and she missed Dennis’s big warm body beside her, but little else. She kept hearing his voice when she’d called him from Nancy’s Christmas day after dinner, told him she hadn’t gone to Florida, that she’d decided at the last minute she didn’t want to put up with flight delays and crowded airports and not enough sleep.
“Oh.” He’d sounded hurt. In the background children were laughing, his niece and nephews, and Nancy’s kitchen began to feel small and airless and Marla was sure she must not love Dennis at all; how could she? Lying like that?
Then she lied again and said she had to get off the phone soon to help out with the dishes. “Have a good Christmas, Den. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
NOW MARLA LAY AWAKE in the dark in Dennis’s bed. His smell was in the pillowcase and sheets. She imagined leaving him, renting a U-Haul and moving her things out of the garage, Dennis inside somewhere—doing what? Feeling what? She didn’t know, but she would have her own room again, her own kitchen and bathroom, her solitude, her sharing her days and nights with no one but her cat, just herself, just Marla, the way it had always been. She began to cry, and it was as if she were falling backwards into a dark hole, for how could she have forgotten she was a dull, round woman who’d been a dull, round girl, lucky enough now to have found anyone at all? That for all Dennis was not, for all she didn’t feel for him, he was better than a lifetime of nobody. She thought of Dorothy and her sad eyes, all that dark melancholy covered with a bitter gloss of indifference, the two of them for decades to come standing side by side at bank outings talking about work, picking at their food and looking out at all the families, acting as if they weren’t completely alone when they were. And now Marla cried harder, turning her face into her pillow.
After a while she stopped and blew her nose. She lay there under the comforter with a balled-up tissue in her hand. Edna leapt up onto the bed and Marla stroked her head and listened to her purr. She stared into the darkness of the bedroom at all the shadowed furniture that had become so familiar—his tall masculine bureau, his recliner in the corner—and she felt a little better. His plane came in tomorrow, the last day of the year, and there was the feeling she was being given one more chance, and there was still time to avoid something horrible.
She just needed to work harder at loving Dennis, that’s all. What was wrong with that? Maybe he had to work harder at loving her too.
JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL on New Year’s Eve, Marla met Dennis at the airport. The temperature had come up twenty degrees; there were wide slushy puddles on the highway, and the airport’s usually shiny floors were tracked with mud and salt. She was only a few minutes late, but his plane had come in on time and he was already downstairs at baggage claim walking toward her, pulling his gray Samsonite on wheels behind him, smiling and waving, a round friendly face behind a bushy beard. She smiled and let him hug her with one arm. He smelled like breath mints, and his perfumey cologne was stronger than ever.
“Oh, I missed you, Marla.” He turned her from side to side.
“Me too.”
“You did?” There was fear in his eyes, and he was looking right at her, her face hot with the lie she’d just told.
She slapped at his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to be enough for him for now, and in the car she drove carefully along the wet roads in the twilight and listened to his holiday, the three-day video game marathon he’d played with his brother, the sledding afternoon with the kids, and all the food: “The food, the food, the food. I even got drunk with my sister-in-law,” he laughed. “Peach mimosas. Ever have one?”
“No.” So far that was only the second question he’d asked her. She was aware of him taking up all the room in the dark space beside her, and she turned onto the highway ramp and accelerated quickly. Up ahead was a plow in the fast lane scraping slush, its red taillights blinking, Dennis talking about his brother’s house, the addition he’d built full of wireless, high-definition hookups. Marla was suddenly hot under her clothes and she rolled her window down a crack and breathed deeply and sat up straight behind the wheel; maybe it was okay to feel far away from all he was saying; maybe she could just stay busy there in her solitude and think her own thoughts.
When she turned off the highway, he finished telling her his video game scores, then stopped talking. There was only the sound of her wet tires on the asphalt. He took a breath and rested his hand on her knee.
“Why are you being so quiet?”
“I’m just listening.”
“Oh.” His fingers moved up her thigh and squeezed gently. “Can we make love when we get home?”
“Okay.”
He began talking about Nancy and Carl’s party tonight, how the last time he wore his tuxedo was for his youngest brother’s wedding, and he hoped it still fit. Marla planned to wear her only gown, the red one that cinched in beneath her breasts and made her look pregnant. She heard Nancy’s voice in her head saying everything made sense then, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up, and when they were finally home and undressing in only the light from the bathroom, his suitcase on the carpet, she said nothing as he reached for the condom, then was soon back inside her, and even though it was over too soon, it did feel good. After, instead of getting up and going straight to his shower, Dennis stayed on top of her, resting his weight on his elbows.
“I do love you, Marla.”
“I love you, too.” Why not say it? It was sweet of him to say it right now, like this, and she swallowed and was about to say she sometimes felt lonely with him. Did he feel that way too? Did he? But he was smiling down at her behind his beard, happy, so happy to have had his say, and he kissed her on the mouth and was out of her and off her and in the bathroom, and she felt the cool air and pulled the bedspread up and over herself.
SOON THEY WERE DRIVING along the shore of Whittier Lake, just an endless black expanse of melting ice and snow. Dennis sat behind the wheel in his tuxedo and overcoat singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Marla had never really heard him sing before. It wasn’t the best singing she’d ever heard, but it wasn’t bad either. A strand of hair kept coming loose, and she had to push it off her cheek and press it back into place. On the other side of the lake was the twinkle of lights.
Now they slowly passed all the large houses of all the people who could afford to live here, and her heart began to beat faster as Dennis turned down Nancy and Carl’s private road. Both sides were lined with tall pine trees, and Marla could see their lighted house ahead, their floodlit driveway. Curled over and around the front door was a wide gold ribbon. Lining the sanded walk were two rows of lit candles in gold bags leading all the way to the plowed yard where a dozen cars were already parked. Dennis pulled up behind a white Audi sports car. Lisa’s Prelude was in front of it, but Marla didn’t recognize any of the others and she began to feel afraid and didn’t know why.
Dennis got out and closed the door. She pulled the rearview mirror toward her and checked her face. It was hard to see in the dim light, though, and Dennis was already waiting for her at the first flaming bag of the sidewalk. She took a breath. The air wouldn’t go all the way into her lungs. She opened her door and stood, the ground so soft her high heels sunk into it, and she quickly gathered up the hem of her gown and had to put a hand on Dennis’s car hood to make her way around to where he stood in his overcoat and tuxedo, jangling his keys, his eyes on their friends’ house. She was fourteen again, making herself go to a party where no one knew her and never would. She had to stop and swallow something in her throat.
“Coming?” Dennis held his arm out for her, a patient smile in his voice. She peered up at him, but he was just a tall, blurry shadow. There was talk and laughter and music coming from inside the house. Above it the stars were in a black sky. That black, black sky.
“You all right?”
All those stars so far apart. None of them close. From far away they just looked it.
“Marl? You okay?”
She swallowed and took a breath. “Yeah. I’m okay.” She stepped forward, and he took her hand, and they walked through the gauntlet of low flames. He was saying something to her, asking her another question, and she smiled and nodded just so he’d stop. Inside Nancy’s house, a man laughed and laughed. Dennis opened the front door for her, and she could smell wool and cashmere and the cream of lobster bisque. She stepped past him into the warm foyer. There was sweat on her forehead. She heard the door close behind her, felt his big hand on her lower back. Her hair came loose again. She reached up and pressed it firmly back into place, then climbed the stairs one at a time, and she led them to the rest of the couples, to all those smiling, happy couples.