Bread Alone (30 page)

Downstairs the air is thick, the palpable silence that follows the departure of a noisy crowd. In the den, a pillow with no pillowcase sits on top of a neatly folded blanket on the couch. Oh, yes. Gary informed me that Richard said he was welcome to spend the night if he didn’t want to drive back to his hotel. I think that was the match that set off the powder keg. I’m sure my mother will fill me in on the details.

I get a glass of orange juice and wander restlessly from room to room, in pursuit of my fathers ghost. He’s always just out of sight, but I can smell him. He never wore cologne or aftershave that I recall, but he had his own scent that was clean, glycerin soap and sandalwood. I’ve always felt his presence in this house, and it’s comforted me. He probably won’t hang around after the newlyweds get back. Or maybe he’ll terrorize them. Materialize next to Richard in the shower some morning.

In the master bedroom, I notice for the first time that the photo is missing from the dresser, the one of my parents. As I turn away, my glance falls on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. When I was a little girl, I spent long afternoons taking inventory of its contents.

I lift the heavy lid. I sit down next to it and take things out, piling them on the floor around me. The aroma of cedar permeates everything, makes the past seductively comforting. Sometimes my mother would tell me stories about these things. She and I would laugh at the clothing and hairstyles in the high school yearbooks. She showed me my father’s college letter sweater with the gold pins for basketball and track. She told me that she went to all the track meets, even though track wasn’t as popular as basketball, because she loved to watch him run. She said he reminded her of the god Mercury, with wings on his feet.

His scrapbook from World War II, full of pictures of friends who never came back. Lots of restaurant matchbook covers, photos of two or three couples in a booth, martini glasses at the ready, cigarettes in graceful, gloved hands or between painted lips. Everyone looked so glamorous. My mother always skipped over the yellowed newspaper clippings with pictures of her from piano recitals. My father was the
one who told me how gifted she was. He said she could have been a concert pianist. All I remember is the agony of her attempts to teach me piano.

Dried corsages. A tiny red velvet dress from my first Christmas. I was only ten days old, but my father wanted me to have a Christmas dress instead of just a red sleeper, so my oma made one for me. There’s a pink organza dress with a tulle overskirt my mother wore for piano recitals. Once when I was playing dress-up, I decided I wanted a ballerina tutu, so I took scissors to the skirt, hacking it off to about six inches long.

The second box I pull out is smaller and has a lid. Inside are letters and cards. A postcard from the Empire State Building sits on top. I flip it over and my chest contracts at the sight of my father’s handwriting.

Nov. 20, 1958

Dear Jo,

Fantastic view, but I’d forgotten how cold this place gets. Miss you and J. W.

Love,

Glenn

A man of few words.

I brew coffee and dunk pieces of stale cinnamon roll in it for breakfast. When I can’t avoid the inevitable any longer, I climb the stairs to my room and slit the tape on the boxes that David brought over.

The first one’s full of ticket stubs, programs from plays and concerts, photos. In a lot of the pictures, I look less than wonderful. I’m talking, eating, yawning, looking away from the camera so that my eyes look all white, like the alien spawn in
Village of the Damned.
David’s amazing. He always looks good. His mouth is never open; his eyes are never shut. He never has a stupid expression on his face.

A manila envelope bulges with wedding cards and gift tags, a few leftover invitations. A letter. I was at a colloquium at San Francisco State the summer before we married. It isn’t a lengthy letter, but it’s the only one I have from him. I pull out the blue, monogrammed notepaper.

July 7

Dear Wyn,

God, I miss you. I detour by your place every morning on my way to work, just in case you decided to surprise me and come home early. I don’t really expect you to be there, but I’m always disappointed that you’re not. I miss our weekends. I hate waking up on Saturday and Sunday and not seeing you next to me. I love the way you look asleep, with your hair curling all over your shoulders. Shit. Now I’m horny.

A bunch of us went to Hank and Marie’s for the Fourth and everyone was asking about you. By the way, I have a BIG surprise for you. It has to do with the wedding, but I can’t tell you anything else. I think you should chuck the seminar and come home early. I promise you won’t have to work very much longer anyway. I plan to take very good care of you. Call me about what time your flight gets in. (And make it soon.)

All my love,

David

The “BIG” surprise was our house—the same one he locked me out of. He took me to see it the day I got home from San Francisco. He made me keep my eyes shut till we got there. When the car stopped and he said I could look, I gasped with what I’m sure he assumed was surprise and delight. He told me proudly about the architect, how the house had been featured in
Architectural Digest,
he’d managed to get a tear sheet and have it framed. It was the best area of Hancock Park, he said. East of Highland and north of Third.

In the neighborhood of older Italianate, Spanish, and Tudor houses, the stark-white contemporary stood out like the nouveau-riche cousin from Shaker Heights at a gathering of some Brahmin clan. Eventually I
got used to it, but I never loved it the way he did. The stark-white walls and steel railings felt chilly to me. The strange angles kept me off balance. A few times after we first moved in, I actually got lost in it.

The doorbell jerks me upright and I look at my watch. One-thirty. It rings again. Maybe somebody with a present for my mother and Richard. I run down the stairs and open the door.

David.

Just to make the weekend a full-blown, unmitigated disaster. I want to slam the door in his face, but surprise has leached the decisiveness out of me.

“Can I come in?”

I’m a mess. No makeup, hair like a whirlwind. He steps carefully around the tumbled boxes, giving them only a cursory glance.

Finally, I blurt out, “What do you want?”

“Your mother said you were coming for the wedding. I was hoping you’d still be here.” I recognize the teal cashmere sweater that I gave him one Christmas; it makes his eyes the color of Lake Tahoe.

“How did you slip your collar?”

“Wyn, please.” He takes my arm and I jerk away reflexively. His fingers leave an imprint on my skin. “Can’t we just talk?”

He follows me into the den. I sit in my mother’s sewing chair, cross my legs, fold my arms. He paces aimlessly for a few minutes, stopping to inspect the little boxes on the mantel.

“How are you?”

“If you actually gave a shit, you could’ve called to find out.”

“Wyn, I do give—I do care how you are. Didn’t you know I’m in Denver for a while?”

“Last time I heard, they had phones in Denver.”

I look away from him, at the little oval table next to me. It’s walnut, with impossibly slender, hand-carved legs and a polished burlwood veneer top. My mother isn’t big on flower arranging, but someone, maybe Howard, has placed two dozen yellow tulips in an ugly metal vase—brushed aluminum or steel—very architectural. I vaguely recall them sitting on the sideboard in the dining room.

“We got the Coors account. I’m setting up a satellite office to handle it.” He lounges against the fireplace, looking like an ad for men’s cologne. “I’ve been up to Aspen a few times. I stayed at the condo. Everything’s fine. Up there.” He looks around the room as if he’s trying to figure out what’s different. “How’s Seattle?”

“Fine.”

“You’re still at the bakery?”

“Yes.”

“I guess it’s kind of relaxing.”

“It’s not relaxing. It’s damned hard work.”

“I mean mentally relaxing.”

“Sure. Any idiot can make bread.”

He sighs. “You know I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve always thought that you could do anything you—”

“David, why are you here?” After I ask, it occurs to me that I probably know the answer.

He makes his way to the couch and sits down on the edge of the seat cushion, hands clasped loosely, finally making eye contact with me. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Wow. I feel so much better.”

The way he ignores my sarcasm tells me that this is a well-rehearsed speech, brooking no interruptions. “I didn’t intend to start … with Kelley.” “When was the first time?”

There’s some small satisfaction in watching him squirm. “Wyn—” “Was it the Christmas party? Last summer?”

“How could you think that? I didn’t start seeing her till you went to Seattle.”

“How can you look me in the face and lie?” There’s a stubborn little knot forming in my throat.

“I swear.” His eyes close. Those long, dark lashes.

I stare at the beige carpet. Richard’ll be ripping it out soon. Replacing it with hardwood, dhurrie rugs. When I try to look at him, my vision blurs. “Could you just tell me why?”

The cobalt eyes shift away from me. “I don’t know. I think we both changed. We grew apart—”

“We didn’t grow apart. You just saw someone younger and prettier that you wanted and you didn’t give a shit—”

“Wyn, don’t. It wasn’t like that at all. You and I were making each other miserable.”

“That’s just how you rationalized dumping me.”

“I’m not dumping you. You’re taking this too personally—”

Even he knows how stupid that sounds.

“Wait. You dump me for the bionic blonde and I shouldn’t take it personally?”

“That’s not what I meant to—”

“So what did you mean?”

He runs a hand through his hair, takes a deep breath. “What I meant was that our splitting up is not a reflection on you. In any way—”

“David.
Let’s get one thing straight. We did not split up. Splitting up implies that it was mutual.”

“Well, it should have been mutual.” His face is flushed now, eyes angry. “We weren’t happy together—”

“So instead of talking about it, trying to work it out, you just said screw this and went on to the next in line.”

“I know I changed, too.” Back to the calm voice of reason. It’s infuriating. “We just weren’t making contact anymore. And then, with Kelley, there was this intense … communication. She was right there, in the trenches with me every day. We worked so well together. I mean it got to the point where we didn’t even have to talk, I knew what she was thinking and—”

“Shut up!” My hands cover my ears like the little hear-no-evil monkey.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come over.” He scoots forward as if he’s going to get up.

“Then why did you?” I didn’t intend to yell, but I am. “Why the hell did you come here?”

He leans back slightly, as if blown by the force of my anger. “The only reason—I wanted to tell you …” I know what he’s going to say. I hear it so clearly that the actual words, when he says them, seem like an echo. “I’m going to marry Kelley.”

I surprise both of us by bursting into raucous laughter. “I think bigamy’s illegal in California.”

He blinks at me like he can’t quite place who I am. “For God’s sake, Wyn. I just wanted to talk to you. To do the right thing—”

“The
right thing?”
When I leap to my feet, suffused with righteous indignation, I inadvertently kick the leg of the delicate antique table. It goes over and the vase full of tulips resting on it gets launched. Water and flowers and those little glass marbles that they use to hold the flowers go flying everywhere.

All those pretty yellow tulips. Now come the tears from some seemingly bottomless reservoir.

“Wyn …” Before I can get a grip on myself, David’s got a grip on me, ignoring the broken flowers and sopping carpet, slipping on the stupid marbles. Holding me.

“Wyn, don’t. Please, please, don’t do this. I didn’t want it to be like this. It’s for the best. You weren’t happy either. Don’t you remember what it was like? Wyn …” He’s smoothing my hair, wiping tears off my face with a tenderness I haven’t seen in months. Years, maybe. Did he think I didn’t care?

What happens next belongs on Sally Jessy Raphael or one of those afternoon shows where people say and do things that are beyond the scope of their own imaginings. When I turn my face up to him, there are real tears in his eyes. It’s just him and me. Like it was before. Like none of this other shit ever happened.

He loved me. He still loves me.