Keeping Secrets (41 page)

I am standing off and watching this as if I were in another body, watching myself in the audience, she thought. Go ahead, Jesse, pull out all the stops.

“You
never
wanted me, never!” He leaned toward her, and his fist smashed down onto his lovely coffee table. Don’t savage your art, that disconnected part of her thought. The ice in his glass shivered, his drink slopped.

“Yes, I did.”

“When?” Tears poured down his face, into his beard. “When?”

“A long time ago.”

“Why did you turn off? How did you get so cold?”

“I didn’t
get
cold, Jesse. Not all by myself. Your need, your never-ending need, wore me out. You say it’s because you
want
me, but I don’t think that’s it at all. Sex is the way you hold on to me, control me. Sex is what you use when you’re frustrated with yourself, with Skytop, with whatever the fuck it is that’s keeping you from going back to making art. I can’t be
everything
for you, Jesse!”

“I don’t want you to be. I just want to feel you close to me. You’ve slipped away from me, Emma. You just keep slipping away.”

And as he said those words, Jesse could see Blanche all those years ago in a shimmery slippery satin dress, jumping into a golden Cadillac and waving, calling to her children, “I’ll be back in a little while, don’t worry.” That little while was endless when measured by the clock of childhood.

And he could hear his father’s words, the only words of advice he’d ever given Jesse: “Only so many fucks in you, Jess. Want to make sure you get ’em all in. But don’t let the women catch you, boy. You want to stay loose. They want to tie you up.”

He’d stayed loose, hadn’t he, he’d done what his old man said, until Emma, and look what had happened. He had let her tie him up, tie him up in knots, and now
she
was the one who was always slipping away. Quicksilver. He had reached out for her, thought he had her, and she was gone, like a firefly.

“Oh, Emma,” he cried, and his sobs began. His shoulders shook.

Emma reached out for him. These tears were the genuine article. This was no act, the real part of her said to the part that had been standing off, a witness. This is your husband. This is his pain. And with that the part of her that she always kept inside, protected, the part that had plugged its eyes and ears against Caroline (against Helen, against Rosalie, against Jake, against Jesse, against betrayal and trickery of any kind) opened its mouth and screamed. Then Emma was crying, too.

“Let’s try,” she whispered into his ear. “Let’s stop pretending that we don’t care. We do, Jess. I do.”

16

“I don’t know why you think it has to be a
sex
therapist.”

“Because that’s where all our problems lay.”

“Lie.”

“Fucking English teacher.”

“Nonfucking English teacher,” Emma said sweetly. Too sweetly. “Isn’t that it? Isn’t that what you want to tell Dr. Quack Quack?”

“
You’re
the one who wanted to see someone. Not I.”

Well, hell, what else were they supposed to do? Continue crying and yelling at each other? This was California in the seventies. On every street corner people were getting themselves improved, analyzed, actualized. Letting go, talking it out, they said, could solve everyone’s problems. They sat in circles, took off their clothes and exposed all their warts and fears before equally imperfect strangers. In this fruit basket of the U.S., human growth had become more popular than any other kind. Who was Emma to fight the tide?

Though she did think about how funny their going to Dr. Ente would seem in West Cypress. You had problems, well, hell, everyone had
something
nasty on his plate. You just bore down and made the best of it. No one questioned maladjustment—or even madness—back home. Like most Southerners, they were almost proud of their quirks and cosseted, rather than confined, their eccentrics. For example, there was old Miss Priscilla Whitmore, who had a thing about money, never touched the stuff, though her family had left her bushel baskets of it. When her dividend checks came each month, her maid took them from the mailbox, opened them and made the deposits. But the bank insisted that Miss Priscilla sign them, so she did, wearing white cotton gloves. Even so, that act called for absolution—washing her hands over and over with Purex straight out of the bottle. After a while, of course, the bleach ate right through the flesh, and it was not unusual to see Miss Priscilla in church after dividend time with red stains seeping into her gloves. People looked away politely and nodded rather than taking her hand. But no one would ever think of recommending that Miss Priscilla see a shrink. Why, that would be rude. Besides which, Emma wasn’t sure that there was a shrink within miles of West Cypress.

Of course there were droves of them in California. Right down the hill in Los Gatos was the birthplace of primal scream.

And scream was what Emma thought she was going to do with the Teutonic Dr. Ente, a disciple of Masters and Johnson. She was sorry she’d ever gotten them into this. Drawn swords under the redwoods at dawn was more her style.

“Now that I’m into it, I think Dr. Ente’s really okay. Why don’t you like him?” Jesse was saying. Their second visit was only two miles and two minutes away.

“Because he’s a Nazi. Because he’s a big fat slob with food stains on his shirt. How can I talk to anyone like that?”

“Come on, Emma.”

“Besides, he doesn’t even listen. He talks all the time. You know he’s no good as a therapist. You like him only because he makes it sound like it’s all my fault.”

“No, just that it’s not all
my
fault.”

“His office looks like an abortionist’s.”

“Have you ever been to an abortionist?”

“No. But if he were any good, he could afford a better office.”

“This isn’t going to work if you don’t cooperate. I’ll bet you’re going to resist the hypnosis.”

“And you’re hoping he’s going to turn me into a nymphomaniac.”

* * *

“Relax. Watch the watch.”

Watch the watch? What kind of talk was that?

“You’re going to become very sleepy.”

Actually, she was becoming very antsy. This Dr. Quack Quack who was waving his grandfather’s watch in her face was just that.

“Play like you’re children,” he’d said. “Take baths together. Buy some rubber duckies and paddle around. Then play dress up.”

“I have some black lingerie. You want Jesse to wear it or me?”

“Watch the watch. You’re not trying.”

“That’s what Jesse says. Why don’t you hypnotize him? Why me?”

“Jesse doesn’t have the same kind of problem.”

She sat up on his cracked plastic couch. “What kind of problem is that?”

Dr. Ente and Jesse exchanged a look.

“Hey, guys, I can stay home and watch Jesse and his friend Rupert shoot knowing glances for free. I don’t need to come here for that.” Emma heard Rosalie’s voice coming out of her mouth. Well, Rosalie wasn’t wrong about everything.

“Emma, Emma. Come, sit here.” Dr. Ente patted the chair beside him. “Let’s put all our cards on the table. Let’s talk.”

* * *

“So you knew about Jesse’s affair for a whole year? Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you do. That’s no answer.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I let it ride.”

“Didn’t it make you angry?”

“Of course it made me angry.”

“But not angry enough to say anything about it?”

“I guess not.”

“Let’s try another tack.”

“Do you sail, Dr. Ente?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you sail? You know, boats, water? Tack’s a sailing term.” Oh, how she’d like, right now, to be out on the
Grits
.

“You’re avoiding the issue, Emma.”

Jesse rolled his eyes at her. But she knew he was loving this. Ente had been grilling her for the last half hour.

“Now, as I was about to say, let’s be specific. You knew when Jesse was going to see Caroline, and you knew, or at least you suspected, where he was going.”

“Yes.”

“Put yourself in one of those situations. What did you do with your time? Did you sit at home and stare at the walls? Did you cry? Did you talk to friends about it?”

No, I called my lover and we went for a sail and fucked our brains out.

“I tested recipes. I catered dinner parties. I prepared for my classes.”

“You could concentrate? You could do all that while your husband was with another woman?”

“What was I supposed to do? Slit my wrists and bleed into the tomato sauce?”

“Emma, Emma. That wit is hiding an enormous amount of hostility. Come, now, did you never want to follow him? To get in your car and see what he was doing? To catch them and…let’s say, shoot them?”

“Wait a minute.” Jesse laughed nervously.

Dr. Ente frowned. “Emma, you never wanted to do any of these things? You never wanted to get back at Jesse in some way, to, let’s say for example, have an affair yourself?”

“No.”

“So you never had an affair yourself?”

Goddamn this son-of-a-bitch. If she admitted the truth, it would be all over. It was one thing for Jesse to screw around, for her to do so was a completely different matter. “Fucking another man,” he’d scream, “when you could have been with me?” She could hear it now. He’d storm out of this office and keep on going. Telling the truth was going to get them exactly the same place this bullshit therapist was getting them, she thought. Nowhere. They were right in West Cypress. Let it lie. Lay. It would work itself out. If it didn’t, take it behind the barn and beat the shit out of it.

“No,” she said.

“Emma,” Dr. Ente shook his head, “I worry about you. I’m afraid you’re not at all in touch with your feelings.”

* * *

“So you haven’t seen Caroline in three weeks, since just before you came to me. Right, Jesse?”

“Right.”

“And what has been her reaction to this?”

“She’s very upset.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“It makes me sad. I care a lot for her. She’s a very nice woman, and she’s very sensitive.”

* * *

“Your nice, sensitive girlfriend called me on the phone a little while ago, Jesse,” Emma announced the next afternoon.

“What did she say?”

“She said she was going to kill herself.”

17

October 1974

“Why can’t I just tell him the truth and have it over with? Why do I keep hanging on?”

“Because it’s hard to kiss a marriage goodbye, baby. Believe me, I know. I’ve done it.”

Minor had called the minute Jesse’s truck left the driveway. Ah, Minor and his trusty telescope. Could it see down into her heart? Could he see how much she wanted him (anyone) to rescue her?

“Have you ever thought of doing it again?”

“Doing what?” Minor asked.

“Ending your marriage?”

Two beats passed. Three. “Emma, you know the answer to that.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s the same thing I told you from the beginning. We have good times together. We care about each other. But I’m not leaving Kit. I’m not giving up my son.” And then he added in a softer tone, “I’m not what you really want, baby.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. You know that, Em. Come on. Don’t you?” Three beats passed.

“Yes.”

“Sure, now. And I’m always here for you, but not for keeps— and you wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“Let’s don’t kid ourselves, kid.”

“Right.”

She could hear Minor lighting a cigarette. Then he asked, “Do you really think she’s going to kill herself?”

“Caroline? I don’t know. She sounded really crazy. Jesse says she’s manic-depressive. Maybe she forgot to take her medication.”

“You never told me that.”

“I have a hard time worrying about her problems, Minor. I’m having a tough enough time with my own.”

* * *

“I’ve been trying to call you for half an hour, Emma. Who were you talking to?”

“Maria. Why? Where are you?”

“At Caroline’s.”

“That certainly was a quick trip.”

“She’s taken pills. The ambulance is on the way. I probably won’t be home tonight.”

He wasn’t home the next night either. Or the one after that.

“Jesse, are you going to stay there and hold her hand for the rest of her life? Shall I send your things?”

“You don’t care about anyone except yourself, Emma!” he exploded. “We’ve destroyed this woman’s life and you don’t even give a shit!”

* * *

This time she really was talking to Maria on the phone.