Happy All the Time (2 page)

She liked to have tea on a tray and she was fond of unmatched china. The tray she brought to Guido held cups that bore forget-me-nots, a lily-of-the-valley sugar dish, a cream pitcher with red poppies, and a teapot covered with red roses and cornflowers. This tray, when set on the bed, contributed to Guido's sensory overload. He was touched to think that this effort had been made on his behalf, but when he got to know Holly better he learned that she made up identical trays for herself when she studied.

Guido had wondered if she knew how to cook. Her slight air of otherworldliness suggested that she did not, while her precision indicated that she did—in the way the Japanese did. He expected a dinner that looked like a painting. It turned out that she was a real marvel. Guido was surprised by the sheer deliciousness of it: food that good must, he felt, spring from a truly charitable, loving spirit. But charity did not seem to be in Holly's immediate emotional vocabulary. After a spectacular afternoon in bed, they had spent the rest of the day in polite half silence. Therefore, dinner almost did him in. Not only did it taste wonderful, it looked wonderful. Guido pegged Holly as a strong domestic sensualist. She had a positive genius for comfort but he was only a visitor: that comfort had been created long before he met her.

He spent a sleepless night next to her, very much aware, even when he dozed, that he was sleeping in a stranger's bed. He dreamed brief, disconnected dreams and woke suddenly, unsure of where he was. The sight of Holly did not immediately locate him—she seemed so dreamlike and unapproachable. He spent a long time gazing at her and realized that he did not want to go to sleep. He did not want to miss a minute of her.

But he did sleep, and when he woke, she was nestled beside him. But would she nestle up so sweetly when awake? She woke with a little shrug and rolled away. Guido sat up, catching his hair in the hanging fern. He was very bleary and beset by impulses: he felt all awash. He wanted to turn Holly into water and drink her. He wanted to throw himself at her feet. He wanted to throw himself at her entirely. Holly turned over and looked at him.

“Say,” she said. “Would you mind getting the papers?”

And so, Sunday morning, the occasion of their first breakfast together, found Guido walking through a light rain to get the papers. On the way back, he felt a slight foreboding: had her request been the intimate summons of a lover, or did she just want him out of the house? Or did she ask all her lovers to get the papers? Suppose she forgot all about him while he was gone and did not let him back in?

It had taken him an arduous two months to get into Holly's arms—two months of dinners, walks, conversation, afternoons at museums, and long talks at night. He had never concealed his intentions. He did not say he was in love, but he did say that he was in pursuit. Holly said she would consider his pursuit. Other than that, she was unswervable, unflappable, untouched, and completely separate. She continued to see him, and Guido was left wondering what sort of test he was being put through, and whether or not he would pass.

One night, when he had been positively addled by desire, she went to her writing desk and with a gold pen wrote out a list that she then presented to him. It was, she said, a list of the things she liked about him. The list read: eyes, hands, shoulders, clothes, and height. Guido pressed for further information.

“I hate soft hands,” said Holly. “Yours are nice and strong. Where did you get your calluses from?”

“Building bookshelves and fishing,” said Guido. “Go on.”

“Well, I admire your height and I like the way you carry yourself. I have always had a fondness for hazel eyes and whoever cuts your hair has struck the perfect balance between shagginess and propriety. I like dark-haired men. And I like the way you wear your clothes.”

Guido was so unnerved by this recitation that he had to fight the impulse to run to a mirror to see if he were the man she was describing. Did he have hazel eyes? Was he tall? Did he have dark hair and was that hair midway between shagginess and propriety?

Now as he turned the corner to her flat, newspapers under his arm, he wondered at what point Holly had decided in his favor. She had arranged to spend Saturday afternoon with him and it was perfectly clear in what manner it was to be spent. But what did that mean? She treated him exactly as she had before, except now they were lovers, and now he looked like any of the sleepy, overcoated husbands walking home with the Sunday papers. He was struck with envy at the sight of them. He imagined them going home to secure marriages, well-cherished spouses who would greet them with warm kisses and a plate of eggs, or who would still be sleeping—warm, cozy, and comfortable—their romantic battles far behind them. It did not occur to Guido that some of these men might be single or divorced, or in a state of romantic torture exactly like his own. That imagined security pained Guido, who was not walking toward a safe haven but to an encounter with a stranger in a stranger's house.

Every morning Holly woke at eight. This morning had been no exception. Guido appeared with the papers at eight-thirty, lured Holly back to bed, and felt himself temporarily the king of the universe. Three hours later they were finishing breakfast and reading the paper, but the news held little charm for Guido. What appeared to him as a great event in no way altered Holly's routine. Every Sunday she read the paper in a certain order. This Sunday was no exception. She read the society pages first to see who was getting engaged or had gotten married. Then she read the obituaries to see who had died. She read the arts and leisure section with special attention to the garden page, although she had no garden. She read at least two articles in the magazine section, studied the recipe of the week with a frown of disapproval, and then breezed through the fashion pages to see if there was anything she approved of. While Guido was undergoing a fit of desire, she read a long article about morality and genetics and then concentrated with complete absorption on an essay outlining the pitfalls and benefits of teaching infants how to swim. It was clear that she did not want to be spoken to. She sat upright in her straight-backed chair, neat as a cupcake, wearing a linen night shirt. Watching her, Guido began to realize why most violent crimes take place in the home: he wanted to strangle her. He wanted to get his hands on her and make her his. Finally, she had read the paper. The dishes had been washed and Holly was about to begin the crossword puzzle when Guido grabbed her.

“Goddamn it, Holly. Doesn't any of this mean anything to you?”

“Any of what?”

“We just spent our first night together and here you are doing the goddamned puzzle.”

“I do the puzzle every Sunday,” said Holly. “And I was assuming that this was the first of many nights. Besides, I find all this too nerve-racking and so I like to put things into the most normal context. I don't want one of those strung-out love affairs that makes you lose weight and feel awful all the time.”

There was nothing Guido could say to this. The first of many nights, she said. That phrase, in her cool, measured voice, undid him. And she was right to want everything normal. That sentiment moved him profoundly, as did everything else about her. For Guido was having one of those strung-out love affairs that made him lose weight and feel awful all the time.

But she did put the crossword puzzle down, and locked her arms around Guido's neck. It was clear she knew how tender and fragile men are in these matters.

It was late in the afternoon when they again climbed out of bed. Guido felt that time had frozen into one solid block and he was losing his bearings. He felt swarmed by detail: her look, her hair, her body, those sheets, that French toast, the memory of that formal tea tray and naked Holly pouring tea into his flowered cup. He badly needed a change of context. He needed to get Holly on his turf, if only for a little while. He wanted to see Holly feel strange in his apartment in order to right the balance. The sight of Holly sitting in his chair would put the cap on the reality of her, once and for all.

She took his arm as they walked and when it began to drizzle she nestled closer to him under the umbrella. She was talking about men's apartments.

“I've seen a few,” she said. “All you boys wear pressed shirts and have your shoes polished and behave like perfect gentlemen at the dinner table, but there's hair all over the soap and none of the dishes are properly washed. Or, on the other hand, you look like wrecks and your apartments look like monks' cells or a picture out of
Boy's Life
with the bed made with camp blankets and the fishing rods stacked neatly in the corner. Then, of course, there's the hunting print set. Big pictures of dead elks and club chairs and those footstools that have feet made out of tusks. Disgusting. I have never been in one of those apartments that didn't have wedding invitations with ducal crests on the mantel.”

Guido's rooms were neat and orderly. There were no hunting prints and no tusks, and no wedding invitations with ducal crests. She admired his two framed drawings and the bronze panther that had been his grandfather's paperweight. She ran her fingers over his walnut cigar box. Then she took off her coat and did something that made Guido's heart turn over. She went through the kitchen cabinets, the icebox, picked glasses off the shelves and held them up to the light. In the bathroom she flipped back the shower curtain to inspect the hem and looked over the soap, to see if it had hair on it.

“Do you mind me doing this?” she asked. Guido was speechless. It was the most open-ended gesture he had ever seen. He had no idea what was meant by it. Was she checking him out? Curious about his arrangements? Malicious? Solicitous? Making sure they were made for each other? Was this a joke, or was she establishing a rapport with his apartment?

Suddenly, she turned on him.

“Either you have a girlfriend, a cleaning woman, or you are entirely compulsive,” she said.

“I'm very orderly,” Guido said. “Once in a while I get a kid in from the student agency to do some heavy cleaning. You'd be amazed how efficient budding sociologists and historians can be.”

Holly sat down, as if at home. But, Guido wondered, would she be happy where there were no trays?

They went out for dinner and she spent the night. Her clothes hung neatly over the back of his chair. Guido would have gladly slept with her clothes too. He wanted every bit of her that he could get. He had never wanted anything so ardently in his life. In the middle of the night, he woke to ponder his feeling of deprivation, even though his heart's desire was closer than arm's reach. Now it was his—or was it? Holly slept effortlessly. She had made up her mind about him, one way or the other, but she kept her decisions to herself. Any fool would think that her complacency at the breakfast table, her inspection of his apartment, the deliberateness with which she opened her arms to him indicated that she had chosen him, but Guido was not any fool. He had had time to survey his cool, unflappable beloved. She withdrew as if withdrawal was as natural as drinking coffee, and she did not make emotional statements. Was this withdrawal or concealment, or had everything been settled to her satisfaction? This stance of hers drove Guido into a lather of confusion, although he knew that everyone feels odd at the beginning of a love affair.

Guido was not a fan of rashness. He had only shown what he felt, not told. He had always known that once his affections were firmly placed, excess would rapidly follow. Now what he felt was the emotional equivalent of extreme thirst. He wanted to stay up all night and watch Holly, who had gone off to sleep and left him.

Vincent Cardworthy was the most open-minded, tolerant, intelligent, and cheerful person Guido had ever met. Although in matters of his own heart he was deeply muddled, Vincent was right on the money when it came to the affairs of others. Thus Guido took guidance from a man who constantly fell in—never fell in love—with vague blond girls who either were on the verge of engagement or had just left their husbands, or were recovering from some grand passion or were just about to leave on an extended tour of Europe, or were in fact European and just about to return to their native land. Guido thought these girls were far beneath Vincent, but Vincent did not appear to care, at least after the event. He began these affairs with high spirits and then rapidly became bored, but he never broke them off. He was either far too kind or far too removed to do so. Rather, he let life take over. Since none of these encounters was destined for success, they simply evaporated. Vincent was never unkind or cruel. He made appalling choices and then treated them very well. The sort of girl he liked was raw-boned and healthy. He liked a girl who always looked as if she had just left the tennis court or come in from a nice, long hike. He liked girls from Vermont who had outgrown their horses and now owned hand looms and candle molds. He liked sleepy girls from Philadelphia with big teeth who bred water spaniels and were interested in local Republican politics. He liked rugged girls from the Berkshires who played touch football. Guido called this tendency “the coach's daughter syndrome” although Vincent had never known the daughter of a coach. He never went looking for these girls. Rather, he fell on them in the course of his life. That they all seemed to be the same girl Guido took to be a dire sign, but Vincent claimed he was cutting his emotional teeth, and that if these girls seemed unsuited to him, it was because he was extremely busy and had no time to find anyone suitable, which he took to be the sort of search one associates with the Holy Grail. He said he did not mind a lightweight. Guido said if any of Vincent's girls had been more lightweight, they would have floated away like dandelions in late July. But Vincent felt, as did Guido, that one is always foolish until one is correct. Around the time that Guido met Holly, Vincent seemed to be somewhat unhappy about his love life, but that didn't bother him overly much.

Vincent simply wasn't anxious. His idea of the life of the mind was exterior. It had to do with planning, statistics, computers, and studies. Guido, on the other hand, was a slave of the interior. He found Vincent's take on things refreshing.