All That Was Happy (5 page)

The excitement of the four women--transmuted
to Mr. Boopers through the large straw bag--caused his hairless
head to appear and, upon looking down and seeing the impressive
poundage and cool fury of the feeding predator in the water,
further inspired him to unleash a series of short, sharp barks of
which his willingness to do so--to face the necessary but
unpleasant task of chasing the evil thing away from his new
master--demonstrated clearly to everybody present his considerable
loyalty and courage, the size of which was certainly greater than
the sum of his parts. With an impressive surge, as if acknowledging
Mr. Boopers wishes, the big fish submerged beneath the rolling,
foam-backed waves.

“
Oh man,” Betty said. “I was going
wading in a few minutes--I always wade up to my knees whenever we
come here. I’m going back inside for a drink.”

“
Dr. Black,” Beckie said. “I’m going to
join WE--I’m going to become a Woman Empowered.”

Chapter
6

On the drive back into Santa Monica from
Paradise Cove, Beckie stared at nothing for a long time. She’d
popped a Tofranil before leaving the Sandcastle and that, plus the
small amount of scotch she’d consumed, had helped push back the
grief to a place just beyond the fringes of feeling--for the
moment. But as she approached the short, curving ramp by which she
would ascend from the ocean’s edge to the security of the bluff and
Palisades Park, the pain, uninvited as it was, closed back in and
the first fear she’d been wrestling with--that of sleeping alone
for the first time--began to encircle her guts with strands of what
felt like electrified barbed wire. She could draw only one
conclusion--going home alone wasn’t going to cut it.

It didn’t take her long to find a parking
space behind Chillers and make her way into the crowded bar, the
place in full swing with younger people in tight jeans and combat
boots who held good jobs in daylight hours serving their city as
civil engineers and environmental planners, many of them on loan
from the vast, corn-fed universities of the Midwest, places where
nothing ever happened and nothing ever would, places to which they
would return upon completion of their internship in this, the
largest city in the nation, a city which encouraged them to open
more than a few top buttons before they swam back upstream and died
a living death in some backwater high-rise.

He was there, and she went up to him.

“
What’ll it be,” he said.

“
I saw you earlier today,” she said. “I
was on the patio with my friend.”

“
I remember you,” he said. “The Banana
Banshee. Can I get you another?”

“
What time are you off work?” she
said.

“
I’ll be out of here just after 12,” he
said.

“
Were you attracted to me?” she said.
“Or was that just your way of hustling a tip?”

“
I was looking,” he said.

She took a cocktail napkin from his tray,
along with his pen, and began carefully drawing.

“
This is my address,” she said. “It’s
right off Wilshire. I’ve been married to the same man for
twenty-nine years--I’m sure that’s longer than you are old. In all
that time, I’ve never been with anybody else. Today that man served
me with divorce papers. Now listen to me. I’m going home and going
to bed--but I’m leaving the back door open. Do I have to say
anything else?”

He cleared his throat. “Do you even want to
know my name?” he said.

“
Not really,” she said.

“
It’s Huntington,” he said. “What’s
yours?”

“
Let’s not make it awkward,” she said,
turning on her heel and heading straight out through the
back.

Chapter
7

“
I can tell by your boldness you’ve
done this before,” Beckie said. “And often. But just because you’re
assertive, don’t expect me to get me warmed up to the point
emotionally where I become attached to you and start to whimper
over you simply because you’re sleeping in my bed. And don’t think
for a minute because you’ve managed to get this far, that I’m going
to be fixing you a fancy breakfast in the morning. If you’re
hungry, and you can’t find anything yourself, you can ask me, but
I’ll probably just open a can. And another thing--I expect you to
be quiet in here, and don’t think I’m going to be screaming out
your name at any time, or making up cute little pet names or other
terms of endearment--no, it’s not ever going to be like that. From
this point on, you’re just going to be Mr. Boopers, and that’s all
you’ll ever be.”

This being said, Mr. Boopers, flushed with
victory at having recently, with only a few barks, sent a giant
shark packing, turned around three times at Beckie’s feet and
curled into a tiny ball. Beckie, teeth freshly brushed, and wearing
her best silk teddy, turned out the light and waited. The curtains
were half-open and the moonlight illumined the shelf on the
opposite wall which supported her collections of miniature
brick-a-brac, a row of antique porcelain glazed figurines gathered
here and there along the pathway of her twenty-nine years of
marriage.

Suddenly, she needed to open the curtains all
the way to let the rest of the moonlight in--that’d been something
she’d always wanted to do before, but Bernie, with his problems
sleeping, had never allowed it. She remembered the time they’d
stayed at the condo in Palm Springs in August, and how she’d slept
outside in her swimsuit by the pool in the full moonlight on a
night so hot even her sweat dried instantly, wishing Bernie would
join her where she lay, awash in the intense spirituality of the
moon’s rays--but he’d stayed true to form, preferring to sleep by
himself alone in the air-conditioned grotto.

I was hot and he was cold, she thought.
Rising from her bed, she threw open the curtains and fiercely
breathed in the moonbeams--it wasn’t much, but it was a step
towards something. She returned to bed and joined Mr. Boopers atop
the sheets, as though to re-create the moment from long ago in Palm
Springs.

No, she thought. Bernie wasn’t always cold.
She remembered the time she came back from a trip with Leah to San
Diego and Bernie was waiting for her, the dining table set with
their wedding silver, the magnificent pieces surrounding a large
vase of white chrysanthemums--her favorite, in the center of the
table--along with lit candles and poured wine, accompanied by the
mouth watering smells from a gourmet stroganoff on a silver platter
on the sideboard. After a sumptuous dinner, he’d stroked her long
blonde hair for hours and insisted she never leave him alone
again.

Bernie hadn’t always been the ice and stone
he’d become--there was the time after her second miscarriage, when
she’d awakened to find him sitting up in the room they’d prepared
for the baby, just sitting there on top of the little fruit wood
toy chest they’d picked out together at the flea market on the
Strand.

Dear God, she prayed, let this not be
true--don’t let this divorce be happening to me.

She half-laughed. The prayer wasn’t going to
work--she’d already been given the knife in the back--the divorce
was real--perhaps a little too real for any last minute rescue by
God. Besides, God didn’t owe her a thing. She’d been a weak
Catholic and married outside the church--a Las Vegas wedding, to
boot! In truth, the Church didn’t even recognize her marriage--not
as far as she knew. She’d broken every commandment when she’d
married Bernie--she’d not honored her father and her mother--now it
was payback time. God had waited until the time it would hurt the
most, and then he’d stuck the knife in her back and started
twisting the blade.

Sooner than she expected to, she heard the
back door open. For a brief instant, the sound startled her--she’d
been so lost in her ruminations that she’d forgotten what she’d
done! Mr. Boopers, apparently a light sleeper, was rigidly alert,
emitting a wary, cutting growl.

Huntington appeared in the bedroom doorway,
the embodiment of her sins, a man perhaps half her age, at the
threshold where she lay atop the moonlit covers. Mr. Boopers,
sensing no alarm from her and not yet knowing who belonged in his
new life and who didn’t, chose the prudent action of disappearing
under the bed from which vantage point he could prepare his next
move, if one was required.

She started to speak and couldn’t, realizing
with surprise there was a choking lump in her throat. Whether it
was from shame or desire, she couldn’t tell. Huntington approached
her and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out a tentative hand
to her long blonde hair spread over the pillow.

“
I belong to a group,” Huntington said.
“I’m sure you’ve never heard of it--it was just something that I
got into when I was forced to undergo a considerable amount of
post-pubescent torture at San Marino High School. You might say it
was a reaction to all the drugs and general weirdness I was exposed
to. Some of my friends and myself needed a refuge from the disaster
we sensed was occurring to the kids around us.”
Oh you little fool, Beckie thought. You willful little fool, you’ve
just made a huge mistake--this guy’s barely out of high school. She
started to rise, to start in motion some sort of effort to cast him
out of her room, but his hand stroking her hair was somehow
comforting--she sensed no evil in Huntington, no
aggressiveness.

“
We called the group The Young Fogies,”
he said. “You know--you’ve heard of Old Fogies--the old geezers in
the films from the 30’s who smoked the best quality Cuban cigars
and drank the best Sherry from the finest crystal, all the while
presiding with studied earnestness over all that was Victorian?
Well, it was like that--we wanted to be like those old fogies--only
we were young--so we formed a group and we all pledged ourselves to
live a life of truth, honor and valor.”

“
I’m too old for you,” Beckie said. “I
want you to know that it is not my custom to proposition
waitpersons in bars. I’ve just had a very, very bad day. I was in a
lot of pain when I approached you tonight, and I didn’t want to
sleep alone--maybe I wanted to see if I still had it, I don’t
know--the fact that you showed up in a way gratified me, but it
also horrified me. I’m sure I’m not making much sense, but I just
now realized when you showed up that all my troubles can’t be so
easily tidied away.”

“
I’m sorry, too,” Huntington said. “I
should never have come here--I think I was tempting fate, or
testing myself, or whatever, because, you see, one of the things we
Young Fogies pledged to ourselves was to follow the old-fashioned
virtue of saving ourselves for marriage. But I had a moment of
weakness when I saw you this afternoon--you simply struck me as the
most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. When you approached me tonight,
I was powerless--I just couldn’t fight it.”

Of all the things that could have come out of
Huntington’s mouth, that for sure was the last thing Beckie
expected.

“
You must like my hair,” Beckie
said.

“
Your hair shining in this moonlight is
beautiful,” he said. “And so are you--in every way.”

“
I’m too old for you,” she said.
“You’ve made a mistake coming here. You should have fought harder
to resist me.”

“
I want to kiss you,” Huntington said.
“May I?”

“
I really don’t know if it’s a good
idea,” she said. “You’re the first person besides my husband to
kiss me since I was twenty years old.”

He bent forward and slowly pressed his rather
sensitive, expressive lips atop hers. The kiss confused her, the
action at once alarming and at the same time powerful, something to
be explored further for its possibility of introducing the
sweetness of pleasure into the bitterness of her life while at the
same time serving to blunt her pain and guilt. As abruptly as he’d
started the kiss, he drew back.

“
If we stop now,” he said, “we can
still collect ourselves. We haven’t gone too far. We can still
handle it.”

“
You don’t like me,” she
said.

“
No,” he said. “That’s not it. The real
problem is--I like you too much.”

Pity surged in her chest for the young man,
and for herself. She couldn’t go back to her youth, of that she was
sure, and it was highly improbable he was prepared to take on all
the baggage she had packed from the last three decades. She
surprised herself by standing up straight, slipping on her robe and
acting quite normally for a middle-aged woman who’d just been
kissed by a much younger, total stranger after twenty-nine years of
marriage.

“
Huntington,” she said, “I know it’s
late, but would a Young Fogy such as yourself like a really, really
good cigar?”

Chapter
8

“
It’s a Macanudo,” Beckie said. “My
husband used to smoke one every evening after work. They’re grown
in Jamaica from Cuban seeds.”

“
If they’re good enough for your
husband, they’re good enough for me,” he said, balancing the
eight-inches of serious cigar between the thumb and third finger of
his right hand, exhaling with some evident satisfaction a ring of
smoke into the ripened air of the living room.

“
You’re not too old for me,” he
said.

“
I am,” she said. “And it’s too soon to
be discussing something like this anyway. I’m not even divorced
yet--I only got served the papers this morning. I’ve got a stiff
round of lawyers and mediations to deal with before I’m even close
to being legally available again. Even after I am, it might take
years before my emotions recover.”