My Husband's Sweethearts (6 page)

While Elspa finishes eating, I call my
mother on the phone in the guest bedroom.
I feel like I need to run this by
someone. But as I explain my plan—which I do thoroughly,
I might add—she's still confused. I start over
again. "The problems are clear. I want Artie to meet his
son. I want his son to meet Artie. But I want Artie to be
the one to tell him that he's his father and that he's dying.
That's his job, not mine. So, I was thinking, how do we get
the two to meet? And I came up with this perfect plan."

"They meet through a mattress?" my mother asks
weakly.

"For the hundredth time, yes! A mattress!"

"Now let me see if I get this: You don't want to be the
one to talk John Bessom into anything. Why's that again?"

"Never mind that. It isn't important." I don't want to
have to explain that if he hit on me anymore and then
found out that I was his stepmother, that would be, well,
uncomfortable.

"Okay. Never mind that," my mother says. "But
you're going to get this girl who just showed up, who loves
Artie because he saved her life, to talk John Bessom into
delivering a mattress to the house himself?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I don't get all of the ins and outs, but it does
seem like a plan. And I'm glad you're doing
something.
I
think it's healthy for you to be in motion. I'll stop by in a
bit and make sure everything's okay with Artie while
you're gone."

"Thanks."

Shortly thereafter, on the way to Bessom's Bedding
Boutique, I tell Elspa what to say. I give her a script that
will play on John's need to sell things more important than
mattresses. She nods along. "Got it. Right. Okay."

And then the conversation dies, and it's just the two of
us in a car. She leans forward to fiddle with the radio.

"What do you do, Elspa?"

"I'm an artist."

"Ah, Artie likes artists." He liked the photographs I
used to do. He'd always encouraged me to find time to
stick with it. "What kind of art?"

"Sculpture."

"What do you sculpt?"

"Men, mostly. Parts of them. I let them choose."

"And Artie? Don't tell me what part he chose. Is it the
part I'm thinking of?"

"He had a good sense of humor. He insisted. But it
was all from my imagination. I made it abstract. And
blue."

"Abstract and blue. Huh." I suddenly see a sculpture
of Artie's penis, blue and misshapen. Abstract how, I
wonder. All from her imagination? "I'd love to see it
sometime," I tell her. It doesn't matter if it's from her
imagination or not. It's intimate, and even though she's
told me that she and Artie were together before Artie and
I even met, and that they didn't have a sexual relationship,
it still stings. The jealousy is always just below the surface
now. I couldn't have sung to Artie while giving him a bath.
I'm too angry for that. My anger is as deep in me right
now as Elspa's song is deep in her.

"Really?" Elspa asks.

"Of course," I say.

There's a pause. I'm not sure if she knows how to read
my tone. I'm not sure if I know how it
should
be read.

"It's raining." Elspa gestures toward the water-smeared
windshield, beads crawling toward the roof. I
don't say anything. I twist on the wipers. They squeak and
bump across the glass. I'll need to get new ones.

We pull up to Bessom's just as John is locking up the
front door. He's talking to a man in a dark suit, who
doesn't look like he's buying a mattress. The man has an
umbrella, and he looks indifferent, cool, almost British.
John's got a newspaper propped over his head. It obviously
isn't a pleasant conversation. John holds up his hand
as if to say,
Let's put this on hold. We're gentlemen here.

I crack open my window three inches.

The man in the dark suit says, "We need to get on this,
Mr. Bessom."

"I know," John says.

The man walks off in one direction, and John starts to
head off in the other. The rain has slowed a little. He
shakes his newspaper. I nudge Elspa and she steps out of
the passenger door of the car. I watch her cross in front.

"I need a mattress," she says.

"I've closed up already."

"It's an emergency."

"An emergency mattress? Look, my delivery truck has
broken down two towns over and—"

"This mattress is for a father," Elspa says, just as I've
told her. "A dying father. His son is going to come and see
him before he dies and the mattress should be nice." I'm
proud of her. Her high school drama teacher would be
proud of her.

"Well, I'm closed up, see."

"I don't really want you to sell me a mattress. I want
you to sell a dying man's peace. I want you to sell me a
deathbed scene. I want you to sell me a father and son
who make amends before the father dies."

John smiles at Elspa, then he looks behind her into the
car at me. He recognizes me from earlier, and I can tell
from his eyes that he knows I've told this young woman
what kind of lines he might fall for. He waves. I fiddle with
the ashtray.

"A father and son? I'm a sucker for a good deathbed
scene, I guess. You'll need a pretty nice mattress for that.
Top dollar."

*

Mercifully, the rain lets up. John has lashed the plastic-wrapped
mattress to the roof, and he and Elspa hold on to
it through the windows on either side of the car. The mattress
is flapping.

"So, do you just sleep in your shop all day?" I ask.

"I wasn't sleeping. I was modeling."

"It looked like sleeping to me."

"I'm a very good model."

"Does the modeling sell a lot of mattresses?" Elspa
asks.

"He doesn't sell mattresses. He sells sleep and dreams
and sex," I add.

"Does it sell a lot of sleep and dreams and sex?" she
asks.

"Not too much. This is just one of my businesses,
though. I'm an entrepreneur with a wide variety of current
projects."

"Current projects?" I ask.

He doesn't follow up. Instead he looks out the window,
checks the challenged mattress, that real estate of
sleep and dreams and sex. We continue through a tollbooth
and get a skeptical look from the operator, like she's
seen a few mattresses fly off car roofs. She's a little territorial,
too, a look that says:
You're bringing that onto
my
highway?
I can ignore it though. My plan seems to be
working.

We pull into the neighborhood and start the suburban
wind through the dimly lit streets.

"If you don't mind me asking, who's dying?"

Before I have a chance to make something up—which is
my instinct, for some reason—Elspa says, "Her husband."

"I'm sorry," John says. "I'm very sorry to hear that."

There's a catch in his voice that seems to reveal he's been
through some loss of his own. We all have our losses.

I turn the corner onto my street. I see the house lit up
like Christmas, every light on, and an ambulance parked
out front, the red lights circling. A spiked shiver runs
through me. The front door is open. Light spills onto the
lawn and across my mother's back where she's standing,
arms crossed, staring down the driveway.

"It's too soon," I say in an urgent whisper. "Not yet.
We aren't finished!"

"What is it?" John asks.

Elspa is saying, "No, no, no, no."

Just before we reach the driveway, I stop the car and
jump out. The car rolls forward, bumps the curb. I knock
my head ducking back inside to throw it into park. I drop
the keys in the driveway and search my mother's face. She
just shakes her head. "I don't know what happened! I
called 911!"

I begin to breathe heavily like I'm about to hyperventilate.
I stagger toward the house and stop on the porch.
Elspa passes me on the run.

I turn to look at John Bessom, who stands next to the
car and the mattress. He doesn't undo the straps. I feel
sorry for him. He doesn't know what he's in the midst of,
what he's come too late for. I'm stalled here on the porch,
breathing in sharp gulps.

"And so you must be the son. I'm so sorry," my
mother says to John.

I take a woozy step toward them, just another step that
comes too late, but then I realize this is the way it's got to
unfold. My mother looks calm now. She'll do this well.
She takes his hand, puts her arm around him, maternally.
John looks like a kid all of a sudden.

"They're trying to save your father," she says. "But I
don't know . . ."

John is confused. He stares up at the lit bedroom window.
"My father?" he asks. "Arthur Shoreman?"

"Yes," my mother says, "Artie."

Artie isn't dead yet. They're trying to save him. I run
through the front door and up the stairs. Arthur Shoreman,
I hear my mind repeat. Arthur Shoreman. I hate the formality
of it. The way it sounds like a name on a form, a death
certificate. Not yet, I tell myself. Not yet.

I turn into the bedroom. Artie is lying on the bed, an
EMT on either side speaking in code, as they do. There's
machinery. Are they running an EKG in here? I can't see
Artie's face.

The male nurse stands back, looking on.

Elspa is shouting, "Why don't you fucking do something?"
Panic-stricken, she falls on top of the bedside
table, swiping everything on it to the ground.

"Get her out of here," one of the EMTs yells.

I grab her arms, then pull her to me and out into the
hallway. I hold her and rock her. She calms down and
grasps onto me, weeping.

"If he dies, I'll die!" she says.

"No, you won't," I tell her.

"I won't be able to make it through this," she says.

I can't begin to comprehend that Artie might be dying
already, that it may only be his body lying on the bed. I
have no idea how long I hold Elspa like this, but I realize
this is the first time I've really been there for someone else
for a very long time.

And then I hear Artie's voice. "Hey, back off!" he
shouts.

And then one of the EMTs says, "That's good to
hear!"

Elspa hugs me tighter.

"He's back," I whisper.

All that follows is a little surreal.

The EMTs are still bustling around
Artie, joking some now. I picture Artie's
son still out on the lawn, the mattress, I assume, still
strapped to the roof of the car. Elspa can't stop crying
even though Artie is miraculously alive. I lean through the
bedroom doorway, one arm still around her. "He's really
back?" I ask the EMTs. "He's all right?"

"He was never gone, ma'am," says the one with the
boxy back. "False alarm. Tension. Indigestion. His heart
problems are serious, as you know, but he's doing just
fine."

"Hear that?" I repeat for Elspa's sake. "False alarm.
Tension. Indigestion."

Artie rolls his head toward me. His eyes are moist and
he smiles nervously. "Is she gone?" he asks.

"What?" I ask. "Who?" I wonder if he's talking about
Elspa. This strikes me as an odd thing to say. I wonder if
he's still out of it. And then he flinches and shuts his eyes.

"False alarm?" a woman asks, in a strangely familiar
voice. She's suddenly standing at my shoulder—a tall, elegant
woman, in her early fifties, wearing a pale blue fitted
dress and smoking a cigarette. She's pretty in a shrewd-looking
way—arched eyebrows, high cheekbones. Her
shoulder-length brown hair is pulled back in a silver clip
at the base of her neck.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"I'm Eleanor," she says, as if this clarifies everything.

I simply stare at her, shaking my head. My ears are
buzzing. Artie almost died, but now he's alive.

"
You
invited
me,
" the woman explains patiently. "I
thought I just wanted Artie to rot in hell, but then I decided
that I wanted to see him before he does." She
brushes something from her skirt. Ah, yes, I remember
the voice now—the woman I called late that drunken
night who had the oh-so-sweet message for Artie. Here
she is. Another one of Artie's sweethearts—a lovely entrance.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if Artie were able to
make peace with his past—all of it—before he died?" she
adds.

"You shouldn't smoke in here," Elspa says, regaining
her composure a little.

She smiles at Elspa as if she's just said something
thoughtful but unimportant. "I barely ever smoke. This is
an emergency cigarette. Only that." And then she turns to
me. "I think my being here may have upset him," she says,
with a small—delighted?—sigh.

"You think so?" Artie roars from the bed.

"Your mother had to call 911," Eleanor says calmly. "I
may have upset her, too."

"Did you try to kill him or something?" I ask.

"Oh, no," the woman says with a wry smile. She raises
her voice so that Artie can hear her perfectly well. "Killing
Artie would elevate me to a leading role in his life. He
would never pay me that kind of respect."

Eleanor,
I say to myself. I kind of like her.

*

I tell Artie that I'll be back in a few minutes. The male
nurse says that he'll stay and get Artie ready for bed. I
usher Elspa and Eleanor downstairs quickly. I notice that
Eleanor walks with a limp, an uneven rhythm, though
she's still wearing a pair of heels. It's a deeply embedded
limp, not the kind from a blister or a tender ankle.

"Why don't you sit here for a minute?" I tell Eleanor,
pointing to the breakfast nook chairs. "Pour yourself a
drink."

"I prefer to be sober."

"Okay then."

She sits down, elegantly, crossing her ankles.

I guide Elspa outside to the backyard by the pool. I
tell her to wait here, that I'll come back for her. She's still
sobbing off and on, her arms wrapped around her shoulders,
her back hunched. I'm not sure she knows where
she is, or whether she can hear what I'm saying.

Ignoring Eleanor for the moment, I walk swiftly back
through the house with the urgency that accompanies a
minor emergency—a fire in the oven or a party that's
taken a bad turn. Artie must be the guest of honor, but if
I'm the hostess I have to tend to my needy guests. I walk
out the front door. One of the EMTs is packing up. The
neighbors' house across the street is lit up. The Biddles—
Jill and Brad—shift behind their bay windows, watching.
The next-door neighbor, Mr. Harshorn, is bolder. He's
standing in his front yard, his arms crossed against his
chest. He waves to get my attention, but I ignore him.

My mother is still standing there next to John Bessom,
but neither is speaking.

When I approach them, I can tell that my mother's
been crying. Her makeup has shifted to a blurry version of
what it normally is, but John is stoic.

"I'm the son," he says, "in the father's deathbed scene?"

My mother looks at John and then at me with the same
expression—pained sympathy. "One of the paramedics
told us he's alive."

"Yes, he's alive. It was a false alarm." I'm not sure if
John's angry or not. I don't know how to read him. "I
wanted you and Artie to talk. He's dying to see—" I stop
myself short.

"I'm very sorry about your husband," he says, shaking
his head. "But I don't need to get to know Artie
Shoreman."

"Okay," I say, "I understand," even though I don't.

"I'll call a cab. I'll have someone come back for the
mattress tomorrow."

"I'll pay you for the mattress."

"You still want it?"

"No, but we can't return it. We've strapped it to a car.
It's damaged goods. I insist on paying."

"I couldn't accept your money. Someone will come
and take it away tomorrow."

"I'll call. I'll keep you updated on Artie, if you want . . ."

"I'm sure he's a good person." He shrugs, shoves one
hand in his pocket, almost smiles. We stand there awkwardly
for a moment. He pulls out his cell phone. "I'm
going to call a cab." He hesitates. "Artie Shoreman was always
good to us financially. And I'm thankful for that, but
there isn't anything else between us. It wouldn't be right
to . . . Well, I'm not sure what to say." He's beautifully
sad. A gust of wind ruffles his shirt, his hair.

"I'm not sure what to say either," I tell him.

"I'm glad it was a false alarm," he says. "In the car, you
said you weren't finished. I don't know what wasn't finished,
but maybe now there's time—for you and Artie?"

I'd forgotten I'd said this. I didn't want Artie to die so
soon—we still have so much to sort through. "You're
right," I say. "Things are complicated between us. And
there's time for you and Artie, too, to get to be together."

"I didn't know him, really, other than a name on a
check, and I don't know that I need to now," he says, and
he walks toward the sidewalk and flips open the phone,
which lights up, a blue glow in his hands.

*

My mother follows me back to the porch. "Are you
okay?"

"Everything's fine!" I say, but my tone is overly cavalier.
I barely believe myself. I grab my mother by the elbow
before we head inside. "Did you let some woman
named Eleanor into the house?"

"Don't get me started on Eleanor," my mother says as
if she has known the woman all her life. "She has to go."

"Really?" I say. Eleanor's take on Artie runs through
my mind. I hear her say:
Wouldn't it be wonderful if Artie
were able to make peace with his past—all of it—before he
died?
And how there was something menacing, but ultimately
true, about that.

As my mother and I head into the house, my mother
says, "I'll get rid of Eleanor. Don't worry."

We walk into the kitchen and Eleanor is gone. "Well,
there you go," I say. "She's found her way out."

My mother walks to the French doors that open to the
pool patio and points. "Not so lucky."

There's Elspa, sitting on a lounge chair, and there, sitting
across from her, is Eleanor. She's listening intently.
They seem deep in conversation—about what? I can't
imagine these two have much common ground. Would they
discuss, for example, the blue abstract sculpture of Artie's
prick? Maybe. What do I know about Eleanor anyway?

"What are we going to do?" I ask my mother, both of
us staring through the glass door.

"I don't know," she says, nervously zipping up her
velour sweat-suit jacket. "I think that we may end up inheriting
Elspa, tattoos, piercings, and all. You should
check if she's in Artie's will."

This startles me—maybe because it seems so likely.

We both step out on the stone patio. Neatly trimmed
grass spreads beyond the pool, which glows from its underwater
recessed lighting.

"Elspa?"

She doesn't turn around.

Eleanor waves to us. "Sit, sit," she says, with an urgent
tenderness. "This is important." And then she turns to
Elspa. "Go on. Tell us."

My mother and I glance at each other and then approach
slowly. We sit where Eleanor told us. She's the
kind of person you obey instinctively.

Elspa starts talking. "He broke down my apartment
door to save me. There was a parade and the streets were
blocked off. He picked me up and carried me to the emergency
room, arm wrapped in a bloody towel. I remember
the balloons bobbing in the sky and his breathlessness
and how I could feel his heart beating in his chest more
than I could feel my own. And he just kept saying,
Don't
close your eyes. Don't close your eyes.
"

I don't know what to say, what to do with my hands
even. I look to my mother, like I'm a child, really, and I
want to know what the appropriate affect is for a situation
like this. What is this situation? Consoling your husband's
ex-, too-young girlfriend on the night he almost died? My
mother leans forward. Her hair ruffles stiffly in the breeze.
I'm jealous of her makeup for, perhaps, the first time ever.
Her real emotions can be hidden somewhere underneath
the complexities of color and design.

Elspa says, "I'm alive because of him. And now he's
going to die. What will I do without him?" She is rubbing
her left wrist. She pulls up her sleeve and shows us the fine
scars. "I was completely out of it. I did a sloppy job."

Eleanor, who seemed so cold and austere before,
touches her shoulder. Elspa tucks her delicate chin to her
chest and squeezes her eyes shut.

Neither my mother nor I know what to say. We aren't
prepared for such honesty and tenderness.

It's Eleanor who leans toward her and whispers,
"Don't close your eyes."

Elspa opens her eyes slowly, raises her head, and looks
at Eleanor and then my mother and me. And although her
face is streaked with tears, she smiles—just with the corners
of her lips.

I've found my way back to the bedroom doorway. The
EMTs are gone. The male nurse has packed up for the
night. I can hear him backing out of the driveway. I've left
Elpsa, Eleanor, and my mother talking in the dark, outside,
beside the pool.

Artie shifts in the bed and then looks up at me as if he
sensed me there—or perhaps he only sensed someone. It
could be any of the women in this house. I can't take it so
personally, I suppose. His eyelids are heavy.

"False alarm," I say. The only light in the room is the
bit thrown in from the streetlamp.

"When I suggested you call up my sweethearts, I
should have told you to skip Eleanor."

"You didn't think I'd do it."

He smiles at me. "For once, I underestimated you."

"I have to say, I like Eleanor. She's . . . complicated."

"She's a royal pain in the ass."

"She's smart."

"She's here to torture me."

"Maybe that's what I like about her the most. When
were you two an item?"

"An item? If you were your mother, I'd have to tell
you that people don't use that term anymore."

"When did you two date?"

"I don't know. Not too long before I met you. It didn't
end well."

"Why?"

"Because Eleanor is
Eleanor.
"

"And how old was Elspa when you two dated?"

"Elspa," he says with a gentle sigh. "She needed me. I
didn't have a choice." I want to ask more questions, but
he looks exhausted. He closes his eyes. "I want you to talk
to Reyer." This is Artie's accountant. "I want him to explain
things. There are things you should know."

Artie and I have always kept separate accounts. We
both came to the marriage with professions of our own. I
insisted that we go halvsies on everything, and our money
never mingled.

"I was going to have him talk to you after I'm gone,
but I thought, this way, I could at least answer questions."

"Will there be a lot of questions? A formal inquiry? I
hope not. I charge a lot of money for formal inquiries."

He doesn't respond to my auditor banter—people
usually don't. "Will you talk to him?"

"I will."

"I'm tired."

"Go to sleep," I say, leaning against the door frame.

His breathing quickly becomes heavy and rhythmic.
We're not finished,
I say to myself.
We have some time, but
not much.
The light from the window is falling on him. I
walk over and see Eleanor heading to her car. Her uneven
gait is quick. She's parked up the street a bit. After she unlocks
the door, she looks up. It's dark. I know she can't see
me, and yet I feel like she knows I'm here. For some odd
reason, I think I might need her in some way. She stares a
moment and then gets into her car and drives away.

I pull the curtains together and turn to look at Artie.
The sheets are rising and falling with his breaths. I lie
down on the bed, lightly, so as not to wake him—my body
curled toward his body. I take in the dark outline of
his face.

And then his eyes slowly open and I'm embarrassed to
have been caught like this, so close to him. I sit up. He
says, very softly. "It wasn't a false alarm."

"It wasn't?"