Bad Behavior: Stories (27 page)

Magdalen’s movements were nimble and quick. Her face was serene and beautiful. She seemed completely content.

Virginia felt as though she were a total stranger.

Virginia and Jarold became very quiet together. They still watched late-night movies, but they rarely sat cuddled together. Jarold got tired early and went upstairs to bed. He was always asleep when Virginia came up.

Sometimes she thought Jarold looked obtuse and stupid. At breakfast, when he bent over the paper, he frowned so hard that his mouth pulled his entire face downward and he looked like a shark. His eyes were disapproving. His nose became blunt as a snout.

She knew that he thought his children were failures.

Camille found a wonderful apartment. She began dating a man whom she liked a lot. She came to New Jersey often. She usually stayed with Magdalen. Virginia would take them all for a drive in the mountains. They ate ice cream and made family jokes. The girls would lie all over the back seat and giggle, Camille’s hand on Magdalen’s thigh, one tilting her head against the other’s shoulder.

It was early morning when they found out about Charles. Jarold had just gotten into the shower. The clock radio, wavering between two stations, interlaced the weather report with a song about dumping your girlfriend. Virginia felt her forehead wrinkling as she tried to ignore the noise. She burrowed her head into the pillow and listened to the warm, dull whish of the shower. The phone rang. She opened her eyes; the red digits said 6:15. She wouldn’t have answered if it hadn’t kept ringing so long.

He had been driving from upstate New York in a friend’s car. He had been drinking. He’d passed a truck coming around a turn, collided with another car and gone off the road. His car flipped over and caught fire. His car was badly burned. The other driver survived.

Virginia’s life became a set of events with no meaning or relationship to one another. She was a cold planet orbiting for no reason in a galaxy of remote, silent movement. The house was a series of objects that she had to avoid bumping into. Food would not go down her throat. The faces of her husband and children were abstract patterns taking on various shapes to symbolize various messages. It was exhausting to keep track of them.

She slept on the couch in the den every night. At first it just happened that way. She’d be sitting before the TV with her glass of Scotch when Jarold would kiss the top of her head and go upstairs. She’d go into the kitchen and get a bottle and drink from it. She’d watch the chartreuse-and-violet people walk around the screen. It was sometimes a comfort.

She fell asleep on the hard little throw pillow. She always woke up with sweat around her collar and a stiff neck.

One night Jarold took her hand and said, “Come on, honey. Come to bed. You’ll fall asleep on the couch if you don’t.”

“I want to fall asleep on the couch,” said Virginia.

“No, you don’t,” said Jarold. He tugged her arm. “It’s unhealthy. Come into your nice warm bed.”

She yanked her hand out of his. “I don’t want to sleep in the bed.”

It was true. She couldn’t bear the thought of lying next to him. He could see it in her eyes and it wounded him. He walked away. He said nothing about it again.

Magdalen came to see her almost every day. She walked around the kitchen cleaning things while Virginia sat at the table. Virginia watched her long, calm hands closing cabinets, sorting silverware,
rubbing surfaces with wet, stained old cloths. She remembered how Magdalen used to run around and make so much noise. It was a clear memory, but it didn’t seem as though it was hers.

Virginia began getting up to cook Jarold’s breakfast again. She put an extra alarm clock beside the couch. She put on a robe over her rumpled clothes and moved around the kitchen. She put her plate of eggs opposite Jarold’s and ate them. Jarold’s jaws chewed stiffly; his throat was like wood. But they talked, and she found it comforting.

Before he left he would hold her hand and kiss her. She’d wait until he was gone, then sit back down again and cry.

Charles had been dead eight months when Anne came.

Virginia drove to the airport to pick her up. It was strange to be at the wheel of a car again, driving with a lot of other cars around her. It was very sunny, and the primary-colored metal of the cars was festive in the brightness. She turned the radio on and rolled down the window.

Anne was waiting at the terminal in a gray suit. When she saw Virginia she tipped her head to the side and grinned; she raised her hand and waved it in stiff, frantic waves.

They hugged. Anne only came up to Virginia’s chest. Still hugging, they leaned back to look at each other and laughed. Anne’s glasses were cockeyed. “Goodness, you’ve gotten thin,” she said. “Let’s take you home and feed you. I’m starved.”

They rode through traffic, chattering. Virginia didn’t go straight home. She left the highway and drove up into the mountains. Anne rolled down her window and put her gray elbow on the ledge. She said, “It’s simply glorious up here.”

They had egg sandwiches and fruit for lunch. Virginia had cleaned the kitchen and put a vase of pink and white carnations on the table. The fruit was cut up in a large cream-colored bowl. They helped themselves at a leisurely pace, sometimes eating the wet, lightly bruised fruit straight from the bowl with their fingers. The afternoon sun came in, lighting up a sparkling flurry of dust flecks.

Virginia talked about Camille, Daniel and Magdalen. She told Anne about Camille’s career success and about how helpful Magdalen was. “She still lives like a hippie, though. I don’t think she misses the big ranch they had at all. She certainly doesn’t miss John. The only time she’s ever mentioned him was to say that she was always surprised at how stupid he turned out to be. It’s weird. It’s like it never happened.”

“Well, you know some people work best in that kind of footloose life-style,” said Anne. “It’s called being a bohemian. Lily’s still that way.”

“Is she doing well?”

“Oh, yes. You know, I don’t ever worry about her anymore. Ever since she’s gotten serious about photography, her whole life’s pulled together. She really works hard. She works for all the papers and magazines in Detroit.”

Virginia looked at the pieces of fruit on her plate. “I always thought that Lily could do well if she wanted to,” she said. “She was such a sensitive child. I was sorry I couldn’t do anything to help her.”

“Don’t feel that way. You couldn’t have done anything. She was too difficult.”

“Yes,” said Virginia. “She was.”

“But she has good memories of you,” said Anne. “She used to tell me about going up into the mountains with you. She said that the two of you ate so many olives in the living room together that for years the color of olives made her think of you.” Anne grinned in a hideously open way.

Virginia looked at the fruit.

“And then do you know what she said? She said, ‘But that’s not right because Virginia’s not like an olive color at all. She’s more golden.’”

“Oh, stop it,” said Virginia.

“But that’s how I always thought of you too, even when you were awful. You were always golden.”

Anne was smiling again, her eyes in sad half-moons. She saw
that Virginia was embarrassed, so she looked down and picked up a wet piece of melon. She ate it, smiling dimly. The movements of her jaw were neat and careful.

Virginia was afraid for a moment that she was going to say something nasty to Anne, though she wasn’t sure why. She had a drink of coffee instead. It was getting cold and oily.

“What’s wrong?” Anne was watching her with a dark, naked look.

Virginia glanced away. “Nothing.”

They had an old-fashioned family barbecue for Anne’s visit. It was the first one they’d had in a year, and Jarold was excited about it. He was ceremonious and manly beside the smoking barbecue, pronged fork in hand. Anne nervously mixed the salad and talked to Jarold about her job counseling old people in Detroit. Magdalen came out of the house, bringing a flat dish of cold pasta. She put the dish on the card table and her hand on Virginia’s shoulder. “How are you doing, Mama? Did you and Anne have a good time?”

“We had a lovely time. We went for a long drive in the mountains.”

“Oh, yes,” said Anne. “We actually got out of the car and
walked
for a long time. I was enthralled. It was just gorgeous.”

“Anne must’ve put a pound of rocks in her pockets,” said Virginia. “Every time I turned around, she was picking up something else.”

“I love it up there,” said Magdalen. “It’s my salvation.” She moved lightly around the card table, folding napkins.

“You know, something I’ve noticed since I’ve gotten older is my sensitivity to nature,” said Anne. “When I was very young—a teenager—the sight of a sunset or a mountain scene was so deeply moving to me, I would get the chills.” She looked at Magdalen and shivered her shoulders. “And then, as I entered my twenties, I lost that sensitivity.”

“Well, I’m sure it wasn’t lost. You just had to concentrate on other things,” said Virginia.

“I suppose,” said Anne. “But there came a point when I hardly
responded to nature at all. I still liked it, but it didn’t move me. Now that I’m on the verge of becoming an old lady, I’m starting to respond to nature again, to be stirred by the great outdoors.” She looked at Jarold with vulnerable eyes, her glasses down on her nose.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “It shows you’re still excited by life. And that’s the most important thing to keep through the years, more important than money or success. A lot of us lose it.”

“I believe that,” said Anne. “That’s why I enjoy working with old folks. It’s marvelous to watch some of them blossom again, especially the ones who’ve been in those horrible nursing homes. They can be like kids with the openness—it’s exciting to give them another chance to experience it.”

“You’re a very giving person,” said Jarold. He looked at Anne with tender, protective awe, a little shamed, as if he knew that giving was beyond his ability but he was glad that somebody was there to do it.

It was strange to Virginia. When they were young, Jarold thought Anne was silly and too serious and a frump besides. Now here he was, thirty years later, looking at her like that.

“The steaks are ready,” said Jarold.

Magdalen put the steaks on the plates. Anne and Virginia arranged servings of salad and pasta. They all sat in lawn chairs and ate from the warm plates in their laps. The steak was good and rare; its juices ran into the salad and pasta when Virginia moved her knees. A light wind blew loose hairs around their faces and tickled them. The trees rustled dimly. There were nice insect noises.

Jarold paused, a forkful of steak rising across his chest. “Like heaven,” he said. “It’s like heaven.”

They were quiet for several minutes.

We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster eBook.

Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Simon & Schuster.

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com