Four Wives (7 page)

“D
o YOU LIKE MY
nails, Mom?”

Marie studied the little pink fingertips that were being held so close to her eyes that she had trouble focusing. “They’re great, Suzanne.”

It was just after eight and the girls were in their beds, ready to be tucked in. Suzanne lay down and pulled the spread up to her chin, leaving only her hands exposed. She turned them around to face her and inspected the manicure one last time.

“Do you think the color is right?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Marie was doing her best to take the beauty nonsense seriously. To her vexation, this had become a mandatory job requirement in mothering her third-grader.

“There’s no right or wrong with nail color, Suz. It’s just what you like.”

Her daughter seemed to ponder this, though her discomfort was still palpable.

“Katy Kirk picked dark purple. It’s really cool. I think pink is for babies.”

“Then why did you pick pink?”

“Because I liked it at the time. But sometimes I like the wrong things.”

Marie sighed, then gently pressed the back of her hand to her daughter’s cheek. “Everyone does that once in a while.”
Believe me.
“But with nail polish, there is no wrong,” Marie said, at the same time realizing that she had already tried that tack to no avail. Then, giving in to the evil forces of society that objectified women and were seeping into her home like one of those bird flus that had everyone so apoplectic, Marie said what needed to be said to get her child to sleep.

“I think the pink is pretty, and it will go with most of your clothes. Dark purple would have clashed. You’ll see, Katy Kirk will have a new color by the end of the week.”

Suzanne’s eyes narrowed as she thought about this, and Marie felt a pang of regret as she read the girl’s mind.
Yes! Katy will have to wear purple all week.

“OK?” Marie asked.

Suzanne smiled as she snuggled into her sheets. Marie gave her a kiss, then turned out the light, closed the door, and left the room. She went next to tackle Olivia across the hall. Having fought with her sister over what show to watch before bed’and lost’it was more than likely that she would be lying awake, plotting her revenge. But by some stroke of luck that tonight felt like nothing short of divine intervention, she had drifted off. Marie pulled up her quilt, gave out the last kiss of the evening, then headed downstairs.

Dressed in sweat pants and a T-shirt that clung to his growing belly, Anthony was standing in the kitchen, staring at the two cereal boxes he’d left on the counter that morning.

“What are you doing?” Marie asked as she walked through the room, picking up toys, homework, and anything else that remained misplaced.

Looking at his wife now, his expression one of contained annoyance, Anthony asked the witness his first question. “Are these out for a reason?”

“Am I on trial, counselor?” Marie was now standing in place by the sink, meeting her husband’s eyes.

“Come on, Marie. Are you trying to make a point here?”

“Yes.”

“And that would be?”

“That I am not your maid.”

He knew that was coming. Still, it was necessary to have it on the record. “So let me get this straight. After thirteen years of marriage, thirteen years of give and take, you think putting away my cereal boxes one morning’a morning, I might add, when I was running late for the train’ somehow relegates you to the position of maid?”

Marie swallowed hard, then dug deep to get out her patient mommy voice. “It wasn’t one morning, Anthony. It’s nearly every morning. And it’s not just cereal boxes.”

His face was now contorted with an honest bewilderment. She’d never mentioned cereal boxes until tonight, and for the life of him, he could not remember whether he’d left them out before or not. Lacking a solid defense, he decided to play offense.

“And the time I turned off your car lights? Or ran out for milk at ten
P.M.
because you forgot to put it on the grocery list? I’ve done a lot of little things for you.”

“Those things are different.”

“How so?”

“They just are. Doing nice things for someone once in a while is different than having to clean up after them on a regular basis. Cleaning up after someone makes you a maid,” Marie said, her mommy voice taking on a sharper edge.

Anthony sighed and crossed his arms. Marie did the same, though she was already feeling vindicated. While his absentmindedness toward all things domestic drove her to her limits, it was now coming in very handy.

“Fine.” Anthony turned from his wife, opened the cabinet, and slid the boxes back on the shelf. He then closed the cabinet gingerly and turned once more to face Marie. “I’m sorry I made you feel like a maid. It was not my intention when I
accidentally
left out the cereal.”

It was a lame apology’totally lacking in remorse and failing to account for the numerous other times he’d left things for her to clean up. Still, she’d been expecting more of a fight and was feeling quite satisfied.

“Would I be pushing it to ask what’s going on with the grass?” The grass, the most coveted asset of suburbanites, was a responsibility that was specifically assigned to Anthony. Grass and car maintenance. The manly things.

“What’s going on with the grass?” Anthony looked instinctively out the kitchen window, though the night sky offered no opportunity to assess the state of the yard.

“There are black spots everywhere. Some kind of fungus.”

“Fungus?”

“Yes. That’s what everyone’s saying.”

“Oh.”

“So … what should we do?”

Anthony shrugged, then quickly pulled back the
I don’t have a fucking clue
expression he was considering. “I’ll ask at the hardware store.”

“Great!” Marie said, smiling at him.

As they did every night when the kids went to bed, Marie and Anthony retreated to the family room with their briefcases. They sat side by side on a corduroy-upholstered couch, their work laid out on the coffee table in front of them. On most nights, the TV was turned on, but only as a token reminder of days long past when they actually had the time to watch something.

“Mind if I turn to the golf?”

Yes,
Marie thought. But having won the battle in the kitchen, a fact that was beginning to make her wonder (there was a time when Anthony Passeti would have fought to the death just for the fun of it), she decided to let him salvage the remains of his manhood. “Whatever. I have some documents on the Farrell case to go through.”

Anthony grabbed the remote and hit the
Fav
button that stored his most beloved channels. Tiger was playing a tournament in Arizona, and he instantly felt the pull, even with an unruly memo on his lap that needed his attention. Not to mention the wife next to him, whose silence, he knew, was grounded in the expectation of conversation. What would he give, he wondered, to turn up the volume, crack open a beer, and watch every glorious shot?

“How’s that going?” he asked his wife instead.

Marie let out a groan. “Dead baby. Need I say more? Farrell never showed up today. I left a message to reschedule.”

“That’s strange.”

Marie nodded in agreement.

Anthony moved to the last item on his mental checklist of things a good husband would ask his wife. “And the new intern?”

“Randy Matthews. Started today. Seems good.”

“Think she’ll be helpful?”

With the speed of light, Marie processed her options, then devised an answer that would not require the use of a personal pronoun.

“Yes. I think so.” It was not a lie. Nor was it an omission that constituted a lie. It was a failure to correct an assumption, one which she could easily deny having heard. It was one letter, hardly anything at all, though it now seemed to be sitting between them on the couch.

“I’m tired. You go ahead and watch the tournament,” Marie said as she packed up her work. “I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

There was a time when this would have had Anthony worried. Either worried or jumping up to follow her to the bedroom.

“OK. Get some sleep.”

Marie leaned over and kissed her husband. “Thanks for understanding about the cereal boxes.”

Then she left him on the couch with his golf.

I
N THE NORTH END
of the Beck home, Gayle leaned over her son to say good night, and he hugged her tightly.

“Thanks for playing with me,” she said, kissing him on the forehead.

They had spent the afternoon in the playroom’a modest name for the massive enclave in the back of the house that was home to Oliver’s things. With vaulted ceilings, professional game tables, and built-in shelves storing an enormous arsenal of toys, the room was a child’s paradise.

“What was your favorite part of the day?” Gayle asked, still holding her son.

He didn’t hesitate. “Beating you at Uno!”

Gayle pulled back and looked at his face. “Beating me at Uno?”

“Uh-huh.” Oliver nodded with a wide grin. It had taken four tries for the cards to fall in his favor. But winning was everything to a six-year-old boy, and he’d been a patient loser’somehow certain that his luck would change.

“I liked the hotdogs in front of the TV,” Gayle said. It had been a day of irreverence all around. Sending Celia, their overpaid nanny, out to run errands, skipping bath, reading stories well past bedtime. It was long overdue, she thought, as she tucked him into bed. How this could be true felt very wrong to her tonight. She had servants to handle every task, every piece of life’s tedious minutia. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, errands, yard work. Her role had been reduced to supervision, even when it came to caring for her only child. Could it be possible that she devoted more time to analyzing Celia’s performance playing with Oliver than to playing with him herself? Was she not inherently better suited to raising her son than a nineteen-year-old? School wasn’t out until three. What did she do all day?

“I love you, Mommy.” Oliver said the words first, and they provoked a swell of emotion within his cautious mother. She’d forgotten how easy it was to please a child with nothing but time. She watched him roll over on his side, waiting for the covers to be tucked in around him, tight under the mattress like a large cocoon. Gayle took a deep breath as she finished the task, then went to dim the light. She made one last trip to her child’s bed to stroke his hair, the only part of him not trapped now, beneath the covers.

As she leaned over to see his face, his eyes began to close, his face relaxed with the peace of sleep, and Gayle believed without question that she would sell her soul to stay in this moment’this perfect moment when her blood was still, her insides not churning like an incessant whirlpool.

But, like most of the good in her life, it proved fleeting, and fickle, quickly folding beneath the panic that awaited her outside the room. Even as she shut the door, her heart full to the point of eruption, she felt herself drawn to the prescriptions, her mind making calculations for her escape. It was after eight. Troy could be home any time now.

“Mrs. Beck?” A voice came from downstairs. Paul was tidying the kitchen when he heard her steps overhead, and he’d walked to the foot of the stairs in hope of catching her.

Gayle stopped, pulling herself back from the pursuit. The pills would have to wait.

She walked to the foot of the landing. “Good evening,” she said with unusual formality, nervous that he might somehow know where she’d been heading.

She was expecting a quick update on some household matter, a polite good night, and then an exit. But Paul surprised her, stopping himself before his words came out, then climbing the stairs to meet her face-to-face on the landing.

“You seem tired, Mrs. Beck,” he said, looking at her with concern. He had stood beside her hundreds of times. But it was never at these times when they spoke of personal things. Those conversations were left to the mornings when there was a task before him and a counter between them. Somehow, having coffee to pour and napkins to fold made it possible to stretch the rules of their relationship. She would talk of her day and he would ask appropriate questions, at the right time, looking at her with politeness, and from a distance’the width of the marble-topped island.

Gayle brushed him off. “I’m fine,” she said, meeting his eyes for barely a second, hoping he couldn’t really see her the way he seemed to.

It was Paul who looked away now, hanging his head slightly as he smiled, a hint of embarrassment on his face. It was something Gayle had not seen in the three years he’d been in their employ.

“This is out of place, I know, but I’ve been meaning for some time to ask if I can help with the fundraiser. I was a hotel event planner another lifetime ago, and I could take some of the weight off.”

Gayle let out a nervous laugh, relieved that the worry over her had been deferred.

“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. Really, I might have to take offense if you turn me down.”

Gayle smiled as she looked at him, waiting this time for his face to turn. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your life. You already do so much.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Why?” The question came out before she could pull it back.

Paul seemed surprised. It wasn’t like her to press him on his life outside these walls. Still, his answer came with ease. “I don’t see my life in terms of work and not work. If I can be helpful to someone, that is a gift. Isn’t it?”

His words provoked a moment of clarity. How many things she had overlooked, small details this man had tended to, keeping everything exactly as she needed to not go insane. And never once had he looked at her the way Celia always did. Never had he judged her. Instead, he had stood beneath her, catching the pieces she couldn’t hold, and putting them back in place’ simply because he could.

I m sorry.

“Don’t be sorry. Just give me a task.”

Gayle nodded. “All right,” she said, mostly to herself. Then, looking at Paul, she said it again, this time with conviction. “All right. But you’ll have to let me do something for you. I’ll owe you a favor.”

“I’ll take a glass of wine.”

“Not exactly a favor, but OK!” she said.

Paul turned to descend the stairs, then looked back’expecting Gayle to be just behind him. Her hesitation was brief, part of her still hearing the pills calling from down the hall. In the end, it was the fear of having to explain herself that kept her from retreating.

“After you.” Paul stepped aside and let her pass. They walked silently, awkwardly, to the butler’s pantry and opened a bottle of Bordeaux. Gayle poured the glasses, then handed one to Paul.

“To the benefit,” Gayle said, lifting her glass.

“To the women who need the clinic.”

“Yes’and the hope that our efforts don’t get wasted on throw pillows.”

They finished the toast with a taste of the wine, then walked to the dining room where the flower bids had been carefully sorted and laid out on the table. On the breakfront were brochures and order forms for china, silver, glassware, serving plates, and the like. And spread out on the floor, because there was nowhere left for it to go, was the master floor plan for the backyard setup.

“So much muddle,” he said, taking it all in. “And all for one party.”

That was exactly what it was to Gayle. A huge muddle taking over her house, threatening the order she fought so hard to preserve’the order that made the rest of life possible. She could see on his face a slight smile, a mix of disapproval and amusement. Necessity had made her perceptive that way, able to see things through the eyes of another from just one look, and she saw through Paul that way now, at what all of this really was. Trivial. One party that would come and go. Guests who would approve or not. Life would go on, and this entire episode, this drama she had woven out of meaningless threads, would have no consequence at the end of the day. Why could she not see this on her own? When had her judgment, her reasoning, become so corrupted?

She had not always been so compliant. There was a time when her life had been a quiet mutiny, a series of subtle variations to her mother’s plans. An Ivy League college, yes, but Brown’the most liberal among them. Living in New York, yes, but in the Village, working as a cosmetics marketing executive’a job she had procured on her own merit. She’d gone to the club, learned to play tennis and golf, but done so without enthusiasm. And, finally, succumbing to the pressure to marry, she had chosen Troy Beck as her groom.

“What’s the biggest hurdle?” Paul asked, interrupting the sadness that was settling in.

Gayle picked up the floor plan and handed it to him.

“I’m trying to keep it out of the house as much as possible.”

Paul nodded, then took the sketches.

“Come on. Let’s go outside and try to see it.”

Gayle poured more wine, then brought the bottle to the wrought-iron bench at the edge of the patio. Looking out at the property, they talked about dining tables, buffets, and the flow of traffic as guests moved about. It was far less complicated than Gayle had imagined, and the decisions were made within an hour. Still, the conversation carried on, flowing from their shared dislike of the Hunting Ridge social minutiae, to the places they had traveled. Paul spoke again of his time as a drifter, working for families around the world, holding few possessions. He had never intended to spend his life this way, but here he was at fifty-two with no reason to change. Gayle, in turn, told more stories from her childhood, the outrageous incidents of the wealthy that cannot be perceived but from within.

“I forget sometimes that you come from that world,” Paul said, and like the chill of the night air on her skin, the waywardness of her actions was suddenly upon her. She had spoken to Paul about her life before, in brief snippets from across the counter. But this was different. This was social conversation, give and take, over a bottle of wine. Somewhere between the playroom and this bench, they had broken the rules.

“Can I bring you a jacket?” Paul asked, but Gayle refused. Running alongside the chill from the air, and the discomfort at roaming so far beyond the confines she had constructed for herself, there was a deep longing to stray even further’and a kind of exhilaration she hadn’t felt for years. With every story, every glimpse into this man’s thoughts, she felt the joy of unhindered human connection, which had been lost inside her. Only with her son had she held on to it, yet it was different with a child’a one-sided flow of understanding and reflection. Looking at this man now, she felt the desire to reach inside him for more.

“What world are you talking about?” she asked, engaging his eyes.

Paul thought for a moment, searching for a succinct description. “The world that doesn’t see.”

Gayle looked at the darkening sky, her face lit up with an unnerving sense of comfort.
The world that doesn ’t see.
She thought about her mother’s lifelong quest to mold her into a proper Haywood, the frivolous waste of life on appearances and the approval of others. She thought about her husband, his misplaced anger, and her own inability to tolerate life when she had everything. It had slowly infiltrated her, this world they were now discussing. And she could recall the moment it began with exacting detail’ the glorious summer day when Gayle Haywood first met Troy Beck. It was a day of sports and fine dining at the Hay woods’ country club just outside of the city, an annual perk for the firm’s executives. Gayle dragged herself there every year, mostly to frustrate her mother by rejecting her latest list of bachelors. That Troy Beck had never made that list, that he was consistently seen as the black sheep in the family firm’the one who was tolerated because he knew how to perform on Wall Street, but whose pedigree was less than par’had been the first thing to draw her in.

Looking back, it was so clear that she had misread him. They had shared many laughs about her stuffy family, teased each other about being the clan outcasts, the nonconformists. Their wedding had been on Martha’s Vineyard, a beautiful, exclusive island, but an island nonetheless. Getting there was a hassle, finding accommodations for the lengthy list of invitees an immense headache. The family pleaded for the club or the Plaza. There were close to five hundred people they needed to include, and it was insulting to expect so many of New York’s aristocracy to travel so far. Every roadblock they placed in her mother’s path had been a savory slice of payback for the years she had controlled Gayle’s life. Standing on the pier at Edgartown’s Lighthouse Beach, a mere fraction of her parents’ friends in attendance, Gayle had been certain she had found her soul mate in Troy Beck.

The glare of headlights shone through the gates. Gayle checked her watch, a panicked look gripping her face. It was after ten.

“Troy is home,” she said flatly, as if somehow Paul would know what that meant, as if the meager minutes of intimacy they had shared had given him a new window into her marriage.

But that was not the case. Catching a hint of despair in her eyes, Paul looked at her curiously, trying to make sense of the things about her that were still unknown. For a brief moment, he saw something akin to pleading in words that were otherwise benign.
Troy is home.

A wall of resignation slowly washed over Gayle before she looked away.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said, standing to go.

Paul jumped from the bench and took her hand before she was out of reach. “Gayle?” he asked, still trying to understand what had happened’ why her husband’s presence had so transformed her.

But she broke away, moving quickly toward the house. When she got to the doorway, she looked back briefly.

“Good night,” she said. Then she disappeared.