Tapestry of Fortunes A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,92
bathroom mirror. I turn to the side. Good breasts. But the beginning of dimpling at the tops of my thighs. And there is my stupid, flabby stomach. I wonder at what age pubic hair turns gray. I don’t see how people who were married for a long time can ever take their clothes off in front of another person. Another lover. How can there ever be another lover? The hands would be wrong. The face. The smell. You’d open your eyes from a kiss and … what? No map.
I put my clothes back on. Then I head downstairs to make some peanut-butter cookies for Travis. Also chocolate chip.
It’s Friday, the weekend looming ahead. Tonight we’re going out to dinner, to an Italian place on Newbury Street that has no business charging what it does. We’ll valet park. We’ll get appetizers before our entrées and dessert after them. “To drink?” the waiter will say, and I will consult the wine list, pick by price.
“I don’t want an appetizer,” Travis says. He is trying to keep his voice low, but he is agitated. We are seated at the restaurant after having been shown to our table with a certain restrained condescension. It is early, five-thirty; no other customers have the poor taste to be here. Most of the waiters sit in a small, white-coated group at a table in the back of the room, lazily gossiping, laughing, drinking what looks like ice water with lemon slices in it.
“I just want spaghetti with butter and cheese.”
“Yes, well, you can have that,” I tell him. “But wouldn’t you like to start with something else?”
“Start what?”
“Start your dinner, honey.”
“Spaghetti is my dinner.”
“Yes, but you can have an appetizer as well. You can have both. Come on, you know that.”
“Fine.” He snaps his menu closed, slumps back in his chair. He yanks at his tie, loosening it.
“So!” I say. “What will it be? You can have anything you want.”
“I don’t care. You’re the one who wants it. You pick.”
I straighten in my chair, smile at the approaching waiter. He is so elegantly gay I feel ashamed of myself, of my predictable domestic status. Breeder. Divorced. Knowledge of nightlife and art scene nil.
The waiter stands before me, raises an eyebrow. “Have we decided?”
Antipasto? I’m thinking, a little panicked. Shrimp in lime vinaigrette? And then, because Travis is right, this is all only exhausting, I say, “Spaghetti with butter and grated cheese for my son, please. And for me, too. Don’t be stingy with that Parmesan, either. Two Cokes, no ice. Four cannoli. And the check.”
“All right,” the waiter says, and accompanies the snappy motion of his pen sliding back into his breast pocket with a tight smile.
“All right!” Travis yells, and sits up straighter.
“Travis?”
He looks up at me, fearful, I know, of being told he’s talking too loud.
“Why don’t you take off that tie?” I slip my heels off, lean back in my chair.
Travis removes his tie, coils it into a neat arrangement at the side of his plate. Beside it, I lay my belt.
Hours later, after Travis and I watch Star Wars twice, he falls into bed. I wash up and go into my bedroom, intent on reading one of the new books I bought the other day. I turn back the bedclothes and then, just like that, all the good feeling I’ve built up today seems to drain out of the soles of my feet. I stand there for a while. And then I get down on my knees, and whisper, Help me into my folded hands.
5
On Monday morning, right after Travis leaves for school, the phone rings. When I answer it, I hear an extremely irritated voice say, “What the hell are you doing, Sam?”
“Oh. Hello, David.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m standing here, David. I’m standing here talking on the phone. What are you doing? Where are you?”
“At work.”
Not in his car in the driveway, then, calling to see if I’ll take him back.
“I just had a conversation with John Hurley at the bank. Very interesting. It appears that a large check was written to Tiffany’s last week. By you.”
“That’s right. I needed some dishes.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I suppose this is one way for you to get back at me. Rather unimaginative, I must say.”
“I suppose you must. Not nearly as original as packing a bag and moving to a hotel.”
“Sam, I’m calling to tell you I’ve transferred most of the money into another account. I’m sorry, but you really leave me no choice.”