Joy For Beginners (3 page)

It would be decades before anyone would think to compliment Jack’s new girlfriend that way. Caroline had seen her once at the local farmer’s market, standing by the tomatoes, all round curves and glossy surfaces. Caroline had watched the young woman laughing effortlessly with the vendor, and told herself that tomatoes would soon be out of season, hard and tasteless as plastic—but the argument lay in her imagination, dull and powerless against the fecundity in front of her.

Standing in the changing room at the pool, Caroline remembered how when she was younger, people used to say she was beautiful—an adjective, and one that always made her a bit embarrassed. Back in those days, Caroline had felt more comfortable thinking of beauty as something separate from her, like a scarf or a coat you could check before going in to a show. She wondered now, however, if she had treated more things as a part of herself rather than an accessory, perhaps everything would have turned out differently. How long had she and Jack thought of themselves as in a marriage—a contract, a partnership—rather than married, entwined? Maybe adjectives like beautiful and married, the way they sent the tendrils of their meanings into your self and soul, were harder to trade in than nouns—coat, marriage, wife.

Or maybe the problem was that she spent her time thinking about adjectives and verbs while other people stood around looking like fresh-picked produce, Caroline thought as she grabbed her towel and headed out to the pool.

 

WHEN CAROLINE GOT HOME that night, she sat on the couch in her living room, staring at the wall of books. Jack’s books to the left of the fireplace, hers on the right. Caroline favored an alphabetical approach to shelving her books; she said it made it easier for other people to find them, which it did, but in reality she loved the process of finding a book through a rational process, only to open the pages and be caught in the memories of the person she had been when she first read it. And while Jack enjoyed reading, he hadn’t cared as much about the organization of the books, his shelf in the living room more a central gathering place than a sorting system.

Caroline had always seen the differences in their approaches as a sign of their individuality, had even joked about it with friends when she gave informal tours of their house. Oh, that Jack. Oh, that Caroline.

Now Caroline stood, looking at the two walls of books, and wondered if perhaps she had misinterpreted the symbolism. She went over to Jack’s side and took out the first book from the bottom shelf. Then she put it back.

CAROLINE’S OTHER RESPONSIBILITY at the bookstore was as hostess to the authors who came to sign books and read aloud to the groups that gathered in the soft, cushioned couches around the fireplace, the hard-back chairs arranged in rows. Caroline’s job was to supply authors with proper directions to the store, to ascertain which beverage they would prefer by their side as they read, to make sure that signing pens were available and sobriety was maintained. Although initially Caroline had thought the job would be exotic and exciting, so far it had been largely uneventful, the authors occasionally less than exciting or out-of-sorts from rain, which seemed to show up on event nights as if arranging the chairs in the bookstore was some kind of Pavlovian stimulus for the Pacific Northwest weather. But not much in the way of glamour.

One afternoon, however, a few days after Caroline’s coffee date with Marion, the bookstore owner pulled Caroline aside.

“We caught a big one,” he said excitedly. “Last minute. He’s coming to town to visit friends and he wants a gig so he can write off the trip.” He mentioned a name that made Caroline’s eyes grow large.

“We’ll have to make sure everything is just right,” the owner said. “His publicist can’t be here, but she said to make sure someone takes him to dinner. And that he eats.”

Caroline nodded. The author’s preference for liquid meals was material itself for several books.

“You’ll take him then?” he asked.

“Me?”

“I can’t. My mother-in-law is going to be in town, and I promised I would be home. And we can’t get him any other time. But you can do this; it’ll be exciting. Just make sure he eats.”

 

CAROLINE LOOKED NERVOUSLY across the restaurant table. The Author, as Caroline had come to think of him, was every bit the legend she had imagined from the photos on the back of his numerous books. White hair flew about his head, and he spoke with an erudition that had Caroline mentally counting the clauses in his sentences as if they were mileposts in an effortlessly run marathon.

He had ordered a bottle of red wine before the waitress even handed them their menus, and drained a glass before Caroline could get an hors d’œuvre, heavy on the protein, to the table. It appeared the only way Caroline could limit his alcohol intake was to drink as much of the bottle as she could. If only it was white wine, Caroline thought, she’d have a better chance. Red wine always made her fuzzy, and she could feel the effects well before the end of her second glass. But the Author seemed happy to carry the conversation; he could talk about anything, it seemed, from inside stories about the vineyard that grew the grapes for the wine they were drinking to the mating habits of dwarf kangaroos.

“You know,” he commented casually, sitting back and looking at her, a cherry tomato from his salad forgotten on the tines of his upraised fork, “you really are very beautiful.”

Caroline registered his words slowly and fought back the immediate urge to correct him, to explain that there were other women, younger women, who were obviously more worthy of the word. Relax, she told herself. The man was old enough to be her father, but it was still a compliment.

“Thank you,” she responded, keeping her eyes steadily on her plate. That wasn’t so bad, she told herself—embrace the adjective, Caroline. The wine was warm in her chest, the air of the restaurant filled with the heady smells of garlic and butter and oregano. Maybe she
was
beautiful. Take that, Jack.

Plates came and went; at one point Caroline excused herself to use the bathroom and when she returned, the waitress was uncorking a new bottle of wine.

“Oh, we shouldn’t,” Caroline said to the waitress.

“Too late now,” the Author interjected merrily. “Don’t worry, little chaperone,” he said to Caroline, “I’m a professional.”

Caroline quickly checked her watch. An hour until the book event. She ordered coffee for both of them and cannoli, which she fervently hoped were filled with heavy ricotta. As they were finishing the last bites, she looked about to ask for the check, but their waitress was deeply engrossed talking to another table at the far side of the room.

“So, I was wondering . . .” the Author trailed off. Caroline reluctantly stopped her efforts to attract the waitress and turned her attention to the man across the table from her.

“Perhaps, if you’d be so kind . . .” The Author was motioning to his lap, hidden by the tablecloth.

Years of mothering were hard to overcome. Caroline looked across the table, confused. Had he spilled something? Didn’t he have his own napkin?

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“A little stress relief, before the reading?” He smiled at her encouragingly.

“What?”

“Well, I mean, we’re getting along so well. I’ve never had a woman keep up with me on the wine like you have. And the way you lit up when I called you beautiful.” Then, more defensively, seeing her expression, “I don’t mean right here, of course. Surely you have some atmospheric little alcove back at the store?”

Clarity broke like a plate on the floor. Looking at the Author’s confidently expectant expression, Caroline had a sudden memory of Jack confessing about his new girlfriend; the small flicker of pride he couldn’t quite hide, the excitement barely simmering under his concern—sincere enough, but honestly a bit late—that he might be hurting her.

She had been so careful to keep things calm, for their son. To be amicable. Accommodating. She had watched her husband walk away from their marriage, taking only what he wanted, leaving behind the rest like a child handing his mother a half-finished ice cream cone on a hot day.

Bastard, she thought suddenly, and felt a pure, bold surge of hatred flash through her body. She looked across the table, straight into the eyes of the Author.

“That’s quite an offer,” she said, “but I think I’ve taken care of enough boys in my life.”

 

THE READING WAS OVER, the Author shoved into his cab. Caroline locked the front door of the store, drove her station wagon around to the back and crammed the trunk full of empty boxes.

When she got home, she hauled the boxes in and stood in the living room, facing the bookshelves. She thought about the day Jack left, the way he packed up his skis and his golf clubs and the nonstick pot he had bought so he could make risotto for her. He had gone out the front door without a glance at the bookshelves. She had followed him to the rental truck parked out front—when did he learn how to rent a truck? she wondered; it had always been she who did things like that—and she asked him if he was coming back for his books.

“My new place is small,” he said, with that apologetic shrug of his shoulders she used to find endearing. Then he had gotten in the truck and left.

Now Caroline stood in the living room facing his bookshelf, surrounded by the empty boxes she had brought in from the car. She yanked a four-volume set of Civil War histories from a middle shelf. It left a satisfying hole.

AN HOUR LATER, Caroline closed the flaps on her fourth box and straightened, feeling the muscles in her lower back and shoulders. It was almost eleven. She walked through the kitchen and out onto the back porch. It was the middle of October, the air chill, its scent a combination of wood smoke and the rain that would come later that night. Caroline shivered slightly and was about to walk back into the warmth of the house, or at least grab the sweater that was hanging over the chair at the kitchen table, when she heard the sound of two low voices in the backyard next door, muffled laughter.

She paused, listening. The neighborhood was close-knit, and there had been a series of break-ins that had everyone watching out for one another even more than usual. She listened, trying to identify the voices, scanning the rhythms of their unintelligible words for patterns she recognized. And then she got it—her teenage neighbor, his girlfriend. Caroline was about to call out so she wouldn’t scare them, when she heard the pitch of the laughter change, dropping, low and throaty, adolescent mischief melding into adult need. Voices sliding into languid whispers, becoming urgent, the slow growl of a zipper parting. Caroline leaned against the doorjamb, unable to move.

Her neighbor was a friend, the son only a few years younger than Brad. Caroline had seen the boy come home from the hospital when he was born. She should make a noise and stop the couple, she thought; at the very least, call his mother. And yet she didn’t move. Part of her, she understood, didn’t want to move, wanted to listen to the seductive rhythm of entreaty and response filtering across the air toward her. She recognized the sounds, missed them in that deep and visceral way that she missed her husband, her life. She heard a soft moan, a quick intake of breath.

 

HER FIRST NIGHT with Jack had been in a hostel in Greece, twenty-five years ago. She hadn’t been with anyone before, but she didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want this glorious boy to turn his gaze to one of the million other girls with backpacks wandering about Europe. She wanted him from the moment she had seen him, a realization as clear and sharp as the intake of her breath when she had gone into the almost hidden anteroom of the church that day and looked up to see the ceiling covered in a mosaic of glittering blues and yellows, a universe made of glass. She had never seen anything like it and it made her stop, awestruck, wishing only that memories were solid objects that you could carry with you. And then there was Jack, entering the door as she exited, all blue eyes and wavy gold hair, and she thought, There you are.